It's hard to live well with a diseased liver. Taking steps to keep this underappreciated organ in good health is worth the effort.

When it comes to health campaigns, liver disease may not have the cachet of heart ailments or breast cancer. Yet a sound liver is just asimportant.

Consider these statistics from the American Liver Foundation and the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases:

• Liver disease is one of Americans' top 10 causes of death.
• More than 100 diseases can affect the liver.
• One in 10 Americans has liver disease.
• Less than 10 percent of people with primary liver cancer survive.

Here are answers to a few important questions about what your liver does and how to keep it happy.

Q. What does the liver do?

A: The largest organ inside your body, the liver has thousands of functions. Without it, you couldn't survive. Here are some of its tasks:

• Detoxifying the alcohol you drink and the drugs you take
• Processing food and drink, and making bile to aid digestion
• Making protein and storing energy, iron, vitamins, and minerals
• Removing toxins that enter your body when you breathe smoke and chemicals
• Helping you resist infections by clearing bacteria from your blood

Q. How can I keep my liver healthy?

A: Three vital steps involve alcohol, medications, and toxins:

• Limit alcohol. The liver breaks down alcohol. But if you drink more alcohol than it can handle, your liver can become damaged or diseased.

  Alcohol abuse can cause three kinds of liver disease--fatty liver disease, alcoholic hepatitis, and alcoholic cirrhosis (scarring of the liver). Heavy drinkers could suffer these complications: liver cancer, kidney failure, bleeding from veins in the stomach, and brain disorders.

• Take care with medications. Your liver processes all the medicines, vitamins, minerals, herbs, and dietary supplements you take. Using these substances as directed can help ease stress on your liver.

  It's important not to take any medications with alcohol. Doing so could harm liver cells. It's especially important to avoid medications that contain acetaminophen while drinking alcohol. Combining the two can cause sudden, severe, and possibly fatal liver inflammation.

  And don't take any alternative treatments that contain chaparral, comfrey, germander, jin bu huan, mistletoe, pennyroyal, or yerba tea. These plants can harm the liver.

• Avoid toxins. When you breathe fumes from paint thinners, turpentine, insect sprays, and other toxic products, your liver works to remove the toxins from your body. However, if you're exposed to large amounts of toxic chemicals, your liver can suffer. Make sure you wash chemicals off your skin, wear a mask, and provide good ventilation.

Q. What else can harm my liver?

A: While improper or excessive use of alcohol, drugs, chemicals, or medications can cause some liver diseases, others are blamed on viruses. Hepatitis (an inflamed liver) affects millions of Americans. Yet hepatitis can often be prevented by:

• Getting vaccinated against hepatitis A and B
• Washing your hands after using the bathroom and before eating or preparing food
• Practicing safe sex by using a latex condom
• Not sharing toothbrushes, razors, body-piercing instruments, or drug paraphernalia
• Wearing latex gloves when touching or cleaning up blood

Taking care of your liver may not be at the top of your to-do list. Still, you should prevent damage to your liver by avoiding things that can harm it.

By Barbara Floria, senior writer for Vitality.

To learn more, visit the American Liver Foundation at www.liverfoundation.org.

© Krames StayWell. Information is the opinion of the sourced authors and organizations. Personal decisions regarding health, diet, and exercise should be made only after consultation with the reader's own medical advisers. This material may not be reproduced for redistribution without written permission from Krames StayWell.