The liver is not just a vital organ responsible for removing toxins, it is the only organ in the body that can regenerate the same volume after damage, but it was uncertain whether this regenerative capacity diminishes with age. Now new research shows that age doesn’t slow down liver regeneration, whether you’re 20 or 80, or that the average liver is always only 3 years old.
The Academic Foundation for the Prevention and Treatment of Liver Disease explained that many organ cells in the human body have regeneration potential, such as the heart, kidneys, skin, and stomach, etc. However, these regenerations are usually limited to local areas. Only the liver, which is responsible for detoxifying the body, is more susceptible to damage than most organs. With extraordinary regeneration ability, it can grow back to the same size as the original after being damaged.
Therefore, even if two-thirds of the human liver is removed, it can still survive. A few patients with liver rupture or surgical removal of the liver due to external forces can barely maintain normal physiological functions with only a quarter of the liver left. After liver resection, a new liver can grow within 3 to 6 months, and it will return to its original size in as little as 9 months to 1 year.
But scientists wondered if the liver’s ability to regenerate diminishes with age? Animal models have been unable to solve this puzzle in the past, but a team led by Olaf Bergmann of the Technical University of Dresden in Germany has come up with another way to trace the age of cells through tissue samples: radiocarbon dating.
Archaeologists use radiocarbon decay to assess the age of specimens. The new research team analyzed the radiocarbon content of the livers of 33 deceased people between the ages of 20 and 84. The results found that regardless of whether the deceased was young or old, the livers were about the same age – an average of less than 3 years old, or 3 years, no longer aging, some cells are replaced and regenerated every year, and some work for up to 10 years.
Interestingly, those long-lived cells accumulate more sets of chromosomes, generally 2 sets of chromosomes in the cell, but long-lived cells accumulate more DNA with age, and may eventually carry 4 sets, 8 sets or even more sets of chromosomes, Perhaps it’s a protective mechanism that keeps the body from being harmed by harmful mutations.
The team hopes to next find out whether chronic liver disease has a similar mechanism. The study is published in the journal Cell Systems.
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Diploid hepatocytes drive physiological liver renewal in adult humans.
Your liver stays just three years old on average throughout your life
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