It is a common opinion among those in the medical profession who regularly pump powerful and unpleasant pharmaceutical molecules into the bloodstreams of hapless patients that the liver can, and should, be trained. This was brought to light yesterday when my father, a tall, lanky, 55 year old haematologist who has been drinking a bottle of wine with dinner every night for at least the last 25 years, recovered completely from a several hour long general anaesthetic with not so much as slight wooziness in about thirty minutes. Over the course of lunch, he meditated on the skill and vigour of his by now well trained, almost commando liver, that had taken all a skillful anaesthesiologist could throw at it and metabolised the lot without breaking a sweat.
It is apparently a common observation that ammong cancer patients recieving chemotherapy, those who never or infrequently drink do not react well. The nasty oncologist sticks a bunch of big, scary organic molecules in their bloodstream, their liver takes one look, screams, and runs for the nearest bunker, too green and inexperienced to tackle the threat. Hence the unfortunate patients spend their treatment regurgitating their GI tract on a regular basis, as their organ systems are crushed underfoot by all that nasty chemo.
Regular boozers, on the other hand, remain robust and apprently healthy throught. As soon as the drugs hit the blood, the liver thinks "Huh? What is this shit? Man, this is nothing compared to that party back at uni where I metabolised (a very large number) of (glasses of some highly concentrated ethanol/water mixture)! These punks think they're tough and scary? I'll kick some ass! HOOOARR!" and so forth. Next thing you know, a few mgs of intereferon has been happily metabolised, and the liver sits back, cleans out its guns, and sends of the signal that the by-products of some lunch would be appreciated down here, thankyou very much, so much for this chemotherapy metabolizing shit, how about synthesising some glycogen like i'm supposed to do?
So, there you have it. There's a one in three chance you'll get some sort of cancer, make sure that when you get it, you have a crack liver, trained and ready to go. Pass me the wine!