St. Patrick’s Day is typically a day of drinking and revelry, if not reverence for Ireland’s patron saint. In this year’s subdued celebration environment, a biochemist suggests thanking our livers.
Getty St. Patrick and Ireland may be mostly on your mind on March 17, but it’s also a time to toast your liver. St. Patrick’s Day is here, and even though most big celebrations have been canceled because of coronavirus, we still have something to cheer over – our livers. If St. Patrick is celebrated for his unselfish commitment converting Ireland to Christianity, we should also celebrate the magnanimous dedication of our liver not only to process alcohol, but keep our whole body fed and alive. I am a biochemist, and every time I teach liver metabolism, I am in awe of all its accomplishments. Here are four reasons to be grateful to your liver. The alcohol we consume can’t be directly excreted – it has to be transformed to be eliminated. Degrading alcohol is a multi-step process that happens in the liver, where cells metabolize it using a series of enzymes working in a tidy cascade of reactions. These enzymes will turn alcohol into a final product that is used by the body to make other nutrients such as fats. That is why, in part, an excessive alcohol consumption can lead to an alcohol-induced fatty liver disease characterized by an over accumulation of fat in the liver. Processing alcohol produces acetaldehyde, a toxic molecule. This toxic compound normally doesn’t linger in the liver and is quickly transformed into a nontoxic molecule. If you consume alcohol faster than your body can process it, your metabolic system gets clogged, the toxic molecule accumulates and the liver is under stress. If you repeat this process on a regular basis and over long periods of time, the liver can develop an inflammation known as alcoholic hepatitis and eventually cirrhosis that can irreversibly scar the liver.
