Can you live without a liver? The liver is an essential organ that performs vital functions like filtering blood, aiding digestion, and storing energy. Simply put, you can’t live without a liver. However, medical advances offer some temporary solutions, such as liver transplants and dialysis, but these are not long-term fixes.

So, you’re curious about whether you can live without a liver. Let’s get straight to the point: you absolutely need your liver. This multitasking organ aids in filtering out toxins, helps digest food, and even stores some energy for you.

What Exactly Does the Liver Do?

The liver has a busy daily schedule. It filters your blood to remove harmful substances, aids in digestion by producing bile, and stores glucose in the form of glycogen for energy. This means that if you didn’t have a liver, toxins would accumulate in your body, you’d struggle to digest food, and you wouldn’t have a backup energy source.

Filtering Blood

Your liver acts like a sophisticated filtration system. It detoxifies chemicals and metabolizes drugs. In other words, it’s cleaning your blood all the time. Without this crucial process, harmful substances would build up in your body, causing serious health issues.

Aiding Digestion

Bile is a greenish fluid that helps break down fats in your food. Your liver produces it, so without a liver, digesting fatty meals would become a nightmare. This could result in malnutrition and a whole host of digestive problems.

Storing Energy

When you eat, your liver stores some of the glucose from your food as glycogen. Later, when you need a quick burst of energy, the liver converts this glycogen back into glucose. No liver means no backup energy, making you more susceptible to fatigue and low blood sugar levels.

Blood Clotting and Immune Function

Moreover, the liver creates proteins vital for blood clotting. Without these proteins, even a small cut could become a serious issue. The liver also plays a role in your immune system, producing immune factors and removing bacteria from the bloodstream.

What Happens If Your Liver Fails?

If your liver fails, the consequences are severe and immediate. You’ll experience symptoms like jaundice (yellowing of the skin), fungal and bacterial infection, swollen belly, fatigue, confusion, brain edema, and low blood sugar. Over time, this can progress to more serious conditions like liver failure, which is often fatal if not treated urgently.

Liver failure is a severe condition, and immediate medical attention is crucial. There are life-supporting treatments available, such as liver dialysis, which can support some liver functions temporarily. However, these are not long-term solutions. The only real “fix” for a failing liver is a transplant.

Liver Transplant as a Solution

A liver transplant is often the go-to treatment for end-stage liver failure. In this procedure, your failing liver is replaced with a healthy one from a donor. Although the surgery is high-risk, it offers the best chance for survival.

Liver Dialysis: A Temporary Fix

Liver dialysis is similar to kidney dialysis. It can perform some of the functions of the liver, like filtering blood. However, it’s not a long-term solution, and it can’t perform all the roles your liver plays.

So, Can You Live Without A Liver?

To sum it up, the liver is indispensable. While medical advances can offer temporary support or solutions for a failing liver, there’s no way to live completely without one. So, the answer is a resounding no: you can’t live without a liver. But with timely medical intervention, there’s hope for people with severe liver issues.

Further Reading: 6 Habits That Can Damage Your Liver