The liver is an organ in some animals, including mammals (and therefore humans), birds, and reptiles. It plays a major role in metabolism and has a number of functions in the body including glycogen storage, plasma protein synthesis, and drug detoxification. This organ also is the largest gland in the human body. It produces bile, which is important in digestion. It performs and regulates a wide variety of high-volume biochemical reactions requiring specialized tissues. Medical terms related to the liver often start in hepato- or hepatic from the Greek word for liver, hepar.
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