What Is a Liver Function Test (LFT)?
More Programs and Publications Featuring Dr. Kyle Riding
In this program:
Liver function plays an important role in processes in the body. Watch as medical laboratory scientist Dr. Kyle Riding explains the liver function test (LFT) and how the liver is involved in vital metabolic and synthesizing functions in the body.
Transcript
Interviewer:
There are some other important screening tests patients should be aware of. One of them is the liver function test panel or LFTs. Can you help us understand what this is and why it is useful?
Dr. Kyle Riding:
Absolutely, if you reflect back on a complete blood count, it's looking at the cellular elements within your blood, and if you think back to the basic metabolic panel, it's looking at the electrolytes found in your blood, it's looking at kidney function through that blood urea nitrogen and creatinine, and it's also looking at blood glucose metabolism. However, there's an important organ that the basic metabolic panel and CBC both miss in a direct way, and that's the liver. And that's where the LFTs or liver function test comes in, the liver is one of your most important metabolic organs within the body. In fact, it is the center of metabolism throughout your body. It is where you metabolize blood sugar and convert it into stored forms of blood sugar. So if you ever have to go through a fast, you're able to quickly respond and raise your blood sugar levels, it's where you're actually metabolizing lipids or fats, and it's where we are making cholesterol, that has become a really demonized villain in healthcare but cholesterol is important. And it's made and processed by your liver, and it's also involved in protein synthesis, a vast majority of the proteins found circulating within your blood are produced by your liver. And the final thing it does for us is it truly detoxifies certain compounds in our body so that we can excrete them into our urine or stool in a way that doesn't harm us.
So these liver function tests that we're going to speak about are critically important to evaluate in the ability of the liver to make different compounds, to excrete different compounds, and to participate in those crucial metabolic reactions that are important to our body's function.
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