Can the liver repair inself?

[Gel]

I read somewhere that the liver is the only organ in the body that can repair itself, except skin.

Is this true? If so then surely damage done from 17AA steroids will be repaired with time?

 

[FBodyGuy]

good question.. I found out that the liver has the ability to heal itself, but it can only heal itself if nothing is damaging it.

So i guess the answer to your question is yes. The liver can heal itself, but only when it is not being abused. So 17AA AS damage should be healed over time.



taken from http://exn.ca/Stories/2002/03/15/51.asp
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Understanding liver's repair qualities
A new discovery could explain the astonishing ability of the liver to regenerate. Unlike most organs, the liver can often repair itself, even after it's been extensively damaged, and a new study might be able to explain why.

Japanese researchers found that when the liver was damaged, it released a chemical signal that travels into the bone marrow and stimulates it to produce new stem cells, which migrate into the damaged liver. Once they're in the liver, the stem cells go to work, multiplying and repairing the damage.

Finding the chemical signal that controls this process might make it possible for researchers to improve the liver's ability to regenerate, or even harness it to repair other organs.
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[Zyglamail]

The liver is one tough organ. They actually do "living" liver transplants where they take half of a liver from a donor and give it to the recipient and both usually make a full recovery in a couple months after the livers fully regenerate.

 

[Gel]

Cool, so really everyone is worrying about orals a bit too much perhaps?

 

[manny78]

Cool, so really everyone is worrying about orals a bit too much perhaps?

No cause too much stress and damage can disable it's self-healing ability.

 

[Zyglamail]

No cause too much stress and damage can disable it's self-healing ability.

Yep, remember, no liver, no life. A lot of people take their liver for granted and even though its one tough organ, no sense abusing it.

 

[Silent Method]

Almost all tissue can "repair" itself. REGENERATION is a different story. The liver is very good at building itself back up after damage. However, if the rate of damage and/or severity of damage is great enough, the tissue essentialy scars, making total repair impossible.

 

[Snarf]

There are really situations to be worried about with your liver: 1)acute drug induced hepatotoxicity. This is when the liver is under serious drug assault and starts to basically break down in a cascade affect resulting in fulminant liver failure. No amount of milk thistle or LIver detox or anything else is going to reverse this and this process happens rapidly enough that the liver has no chance of healing or regenerating while this is taking place. If caught early, you stop taking the offending drug and hopefully things normalize. If you are symptomatic, you go the ER. If you catch it too late, you go to the ER anyway.

The other concern is long term damage that can be asymptomatic and is cumulative. Some of this damage may be repaired while off cycle, but if significant scarring or cysts develop, then you basically start to lose liver capacity/function. You won't know this is happening unless you get regular LFT tests. If it happens over a long period of time and affects enough of your liver, then you become clinically hepatically impaired which means that your liver is less capable of detoxifying your body, which also means it is less capable of dealing with any future cycles you may do.

Do a search on Liver 101 for a post I wrote with more details. Hope this helps.