Creation Moment 1/26/2025 - Your Machine: The liver

"The liver is a multifunction accessory organ to digestion, which means that it is not part of the alimentary canal, but external to it. Among other things, it is essential to the healthy functioning of the gastrointestinal and endocrine systems. Introducing digestive juices into the system, liver functions are part of the process of detoxifying and breaking down food components into a form suitable for absorption.

The liver controls the glucose level in blood by converting glucose into glycogen (glycogenesis) if the glucose level is too high, and vice versa when it is too low. When a person has low blood sugar, the

liver can release glucose through the conversion of certain amino acids and lactate, as well as other sugars like fructose and galactose. If the sugar level is too high, the liver can turn glucose into fats, too.

The compound adenosine triphosphate (ATP) delivers energy for most of life’s metabolic processes; for example, the manufacture of protein machines. ATP synthase is one such machine, a motor consisting of 29 proteins, which in turn produces ATP.

A very important function of the liver is the detoxification of drugs such as penicillin, sulfonamides (R–S(= O)2–NR2, with ‘R’ a chemical group, the simplest being hydrogen), and ethanol (alcohol).

The hepatic cells of the liver daily produce nearly 0.5 liter of bile; a basic liquid (pH 7.6–8.6) that has a yellow, brown, or olive-green color. Bile is needed for fat digestion during and after meals, so is

stored in concentrated form in the gallbladder. 

This secretes about 500 ml of bile per day, a rate that is regulated by the hormone cholecystokinin (CCK), which causes the gallbladder to contract. 

Bile is mainly water with bile acids and other salts, cholesterol, bile pigments, ions, as well as other materials. The bile salts help the cholesterol to dissolve in the small intestine. Through their emulsifying action on fats, they also break down large fat globules into smaller droplets, as well as preventing the latter coalescing into larger ones. This increases the lipid surface area for hydrolysis by the pancreatic enzyme lipase. Hepatic lipase controls fat levels in the blood. The bile pigment bilirubin derives from the breaking down of red blood cells (RBCs), as does iron. 

In the intestine, bilirubin gets further broken down into urobilinogen, giving feces their characteristic brown color. In diseases where bilirubin removal from the liver is restricted, it collects in other body tissues, giving the skin and eyes a yellow color (jaundice).

It beggars belief how all this could have come about in a gradual, goal-less, evolutionary progression. From no liver to a fully developed, integrated, multi-tasking organ, numerous tasks would need to be put in place, all interdependent with other organs/systems.

The liver is essential for life. Without a liver, death ensues very quickly (...till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life. Proverbs 7:23)." 

CMI