What is Liver?

If you place your right hand over the area under the ribs on the right side of your body it will just about cover the area of your liver. The liver is the largest gland, and the largest solid organ in the body, weighing some 1.8 kgs in men and 1.3 kgs in women. It holds approximately 13% (about one pint or 0.57 litres) of your total blood supply at any given moment and is estimated to have over 500 functions.


The liver is dark reddish brown in colour and is divided into two main lobes (the much larger right and the smaller left) which are further subdivided into approximately 100,000 small lobes, or lobules. About 60% of the liver is made up of liver cells called hepatocytes which absorb nutrients and detoxify and remove harmful substances from the blood. A hepatocyte has an average lifespan of 150 days. There are approximately 202,000 in every milligram of your liver tissue. Two-thirds of the body of your liver is the parenchyma, which contains the hepatocytes, and the remainder is the biliary tract. It receives its blood supply via the hepatic artery and portal vein (which transports nutrients from your intestine, or gut).