Well Organ-ized Facts
We all know what the brain, heart, and lungs do, but here’s what some of your other many organs do:
Sunday
Your pancreas produces several liters of enzyme-packed fluid everyday to help with digesting the food you eat. It also produces the hormones which regulate blood sugar, insulin and glucagon.
Monday
Your gallbladder, a small organ which sits right under your liver, stores and releases the bile produced by your liver to help break down fats in your food.
Tuesday
The thyroid, a butterfly-shaped organ in your neck, is one of the nine glands of the endocrine system. These glands have the job of secreting hormones, and hormones released by the thyroid have the job of regulating metabolism, including energy and growth.
Wednesday
Your spleen, a neighbor to your ribs and stomach, is a great manager of blood. It removes old and damaged blood cells, controls the relative levels of platelets, white blood cells, and red blood cells, and also fights blood-borne germs by sending white blood cells to attack them.
Thursday
Everyday your kidneys filter enough blood to fill a bathtub, removing toxins and wastes for you to pee out. Kidneys also manage blood pH, pressure, and sugar levels, as well as producing other useful hormones.
Friday
Named for the Greek word for “soul” (since Greeks thought it lived there) the thymus gland lives high in the chest. This gland makes disease-fighting T-cells before your birth and continues to make and “train” T-cells through puberty.
Saturday
Many people first think about their appendix when it needs to get removed, and for years it was believed to be a vestigial organ without use in modern humans. However, more recent research indicates it has roles in the immune system and can act as a “safe house” for gut bacteria to live.