If both liver and kidneys are cleaning the blood, what’s the difference between them?
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At the most basic ELI 5 level, all the chemicals in your body and that make up your body are small or big. The small ones usually dissolve in water and hate fat, while the big ones only dissolve in fat and hate water.
Your kidney handles the small, water loving chemicals and the liver handles the big fat loving chemicals. Part of the liver’s job is to get rid of large molecules that can’t be broken down well into bile, which goes out your bowel, and another part is to, when it can, break those big molecules down into small ones which do love water and can then be handled by your kidneys.
The most common example of a molecule that starts in your liver but gets broken down there so it can dissolve in water and go out the kidney is urea, which makes your pee yellow. It is how your body gets rid of excess nitrogen from breaking down proteins.
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