Your liver and how it works

Your liver is an amazing part of the body. Located on the right-hand side of your abdomen just below the ribcage, the liver acts like a factory that runs 24 hours a day. 

It processes virtually everything you eat, drink, breathe in or rub on your skin—and that's just some of the more than 500 different things the liver does. 

Every day, your liver helps your body by providing it with energy, fighting off infections and toxins, helping clot the blood, regulating hormones, and much, much more. To give you an idea of the liver's critical roles, here are a few things it does:

• Breaks down food and turns it into energy
• Helps make proteins that repair damaged tissues
• Processes and neutralizes drugs and alcohol to make them less harmful to your body
• Makes and regulates hormones including sex hormones
• Stores essential vitamins and minerals, such as iron and copper
• Helps the body get rid of waste products

Revised 2011.