If both liver and kidneys are cleaning the blood, what’s the difference between them?
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The kidneys are a filter to remove various compounds from your blood and regulate water content.
Your liver is a chemical factory that, among other functions, breaks down a range of toxic compounds into forms that can be either metabolized or removed by other systems – kidneys or intestines.
The liver’s primary job is to make compounds in your blood take on a form that’s easier for the kidneys to excrete; in practice this means making them more soluble in water. All in all the liver is about making things you want more available to you, and making wastes easier to excrete. The liver filters blood coming from the intestines and the stomach, it’s the first pass which tries to balance everything in a way that works for your body. The liver breaks down large molecules into smaller and more easily absorbed ones as well, it does a LOT of different things really. The liver is also involved in producing bile salts, recycling compounds from our own dead cells and more.
Your kidneys can be thought of as the other end of that sort of job, the kidneys (ideally) filter your entire blood volume a couple of times an hour. One of their primary jobs involves regulating the concentration of electrolytes and water in the blood. The kidneys also remove the waste products we generate as a result of metabolizing proteins, it’s how we eliminate a lot of excess nitrogen. The kidneys can only do a large part of their job though because the liver is there to make compounds dissolve more easily in our body’s water.
Finally, although you didn’t ask, the last line of waste removal is through feces, where the wreckage of old blood cells, undigested food (and lots of the corpses of bacteria which live in our guts), old bile salts and whatever compounds the liver couldn’t make soluble enough in water to be eliminated by the urine.
The liver is the main filter. It takes large complex molecules that can be harmful if built up, and it breaks them down to smaller simpler molecules. The small simple molecules can then be removed from the blood by the kidneys and expelled from the body.
One example of this is with alcohol. In response to blood alcohol levels the liver releases an enyme called alcohol dehydrogenase. This enzyme attaches to and breaks down the alcohol molecules into acetaldehyde. Then the liver further breaks it down to acetate. Acetate when acetate hits the water in our blood it separates into carbon dioxide and water. Thus the dangerous alcohol and acetaldehyde is reduced into something non toxic which we can eliminate through the urine.
The kidneys are a filter to remove various compounds from your blood and regulate water content.
Your liver is a chemical factory that, among other functions, breaks down a range of toxic compounds into forms that can be either metabolized or removed by other systems – kidneys or intestines.
If the kidneys are a filtration unit, the liver is an upstream chemical processing unit.
Kidneys take out pretty much the majority of the plasma content (ions, small molecules, water, small proteins, etc) and then depending on the signals it receives by countless pathways and hormones, decides which and how much to get back and keep of those.
The liver on the other hand is equipped with a gigantic amount of pathways that can break down all sorts of “unusual” chemicals, things that the rest of the body cannot readily use or handle. Things that could really hurt the body too. And then, those things reach the kidneys and either get excreted or kept. Of course in the case of toxins, excreted. In a way, the liver also does the kidneys a favor, because they concentrate things very highly in them when filtering, and a toxin would do a number of the kidneys if not “neutralized” (broken down to something less bad) first.
Of course, in physiology, nothing is black and white. Kidneys also have a bunch of cytochrome enzymes that can break down things. Not to mention that both organs serve a lot more functions. For example the kidneys don’t just get rid of waste, they also regulate ion homeostasis, acid base balance, blood pressure, red blood cell production, etc.. The liver has a hand in everything metabolic, ranging from making glucose, to taking care of fat, to making sure phosphate and calcium don’t crystallize together wreaking havoc, etc etc. Barely brushed over the basics here.
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A shorter version of all these answers is the liver takes stuff that will kill you today and turns it into stuff that will kill you in a few days. The kidney then removes this less harmful (but still harmful) stuff out of the blood.
The liver’s primary job is to make compounds in your blood take on a form that’s easier for the kidneys to excrete; in practice this means making them more soluble in water. All in all the liver is about making things you want more available to you, and making wastes easier to excrete. The liver filters blood coming from the intestines and the stomach, it’s the first pass which tries to balance everything in a way that works for your body. The liver breaks down large molecules into smaller and more easily absorbed ones as well, it does a LOT of different things really. The liver is also involved in producing bile salts, recycling compounds from our own dead cells and more.
Your kidneys can be thought of as the other end of that sort of job, the kidneys (ideally) filter your entire blood volume a couple of times an hour. One of their primary jobs involves regulating the concentration of electrolytes and water in the blood. The kidneys also remove the waste products we generate as a result of metabolizing proteins, it’s how we eliminate a lot of excess nitrogen. The kidneys can only do a large part of their job though because the liver is there to make compounds dissolve more easily in our body’s water.
Finally, although you didn’t ask, the last line of waste removal is through feces, where the wreckage of old blood cells, undigested food (and lots of the corpses of bacteria which live in our guts), old bile salts and whatever compounds the liver couldn’t make soluble enough in water to be eliminated by the urine.
The liver is the main filter. It takes large complex molecules that can be harmful if built up, and it breaks them down to smaller simpler molecules. The small simple molecules can then be removed from the blood by the kidneys and expelled from the body.
One example of this is with alcohol. In response to blood alcohol levels the liver releases an enyme called alcohol dehydrogenase. This enzyme attaches to and breaks down the alcohol molecules into acetaldehyde. Then the liver further breaks it down to acetate. Acetate when acetate hits the water in our blood it separates into carbon dioxide and water. Thus the dangerous alcohol and acetaldehyde is reduced into something non toxic which we can eliminate through the urine.
If the kidneys are a filtration unit, the liver is an upstream chemical processing unit.
Kidneys take out pretty much the majority of the plasma content (ions, small molecules, water, small proteins, etc) and then depending on the signals it receives by countless pathways and hormones, decides which and how much to get back and keep of those.
The liver on the other hand is equipped with a gigantic amount of pathways that can break down all sorts of “unusual” chemicals, things that the rest of the body cannot readily use or handle. Things that could really hurt the body too. And then, those things reach the kidneys and either get excreted or kept. Of course in the case of toxins, excreted. In a way, the liver also does the kidneys a favor, because they concentrate things very highly in them when filtering, and a toxin would do a number of the kidneys if not “neutralized” (broken down to something less bad) first.
Of course, in physiology, nothing is black and white. Kidneys also have a bunch of cytochrome enzymes that can break down things. Not to mention that both organs serve a lot more functions. For example the kidneys don’t just get rid of waste, they also regulate ion homeostasis, acid base balance, blood pressure, red blood cell production, etc.. The liver has a hand in everything metabolic, ranging from making glucose, to taking care of fat, to making sure phosphate and calcium don’t crystallize together wreaking havoc, etc etc. Barely brushed over the basics here.
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