You do not consume alcoholic beverages, but your friend does, and he consumes these drinks regularly and in large amounts. If we could examine your liver cells and compare with your friend, would we see a difference in smooth ER and peroxisomes?
-
The smooth endoplasmic reticulum helps inactivate and detoxify lipid-soluble drugs and potentially harmful substances, which in this situation, is alcohol. Meanwhile, peroxisomes are also able to oxidize toxic and damaging substances. In a situation where I don’t consume alcohol and my friend does in large amounts regularly, there would be a significant contrast between the amounts of smooth endoplasmic reticulum and peroxisome organelles that are present in each of our livers. In order to detoxify the large amount of alcohol content in their body, my friend would have more of these organelles in their liver cells compared to mine.