4 January 2019, updated 5 January 2019
On the last of our 12 Days of Culture, a film about pioneering liver transplant surgeon Thomas Starzl is one of sacrificing family life for medical advance
Stephen Barnes/Medical / Alamy Stock Photo
If there’s one organ we take for granted (or try to forget) during any festivities, it’s the liver. With every sip of left-over New Year mulled wine (or something stronger), we turn a blind eye to that engine room of the digestive system: the complex mass of ligaments and lobes that does 500 jobs, including the detoxification of harmful substances.
I’ve been wondering a lot about that mighty organ. Not that there is anything wrong with me just yet, but research published in The Lancet in 2018 …