Give your liver a Valentine this February! Watch short educational videos about this vital organ to learn how to improve your liver health and prevent liver disease and cancer.

As part of its “Love Your Liver” public awareness campaign, each day this month, the nonprofit patient advocacy group Blue Faery is posting a liver-related video along with simple actions you can take to protect yourself and loved ones against future liver disease, especially hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common form of liver cancer.

The daily videos are collected on LoveYourLiver.us as well as Blue Faery’s YouTube channel. (Several videos are embedded in this article.)

In the series’ introductory video—which you can watch at the top of this page—Andrea Wilson Woods, president and founder of Blue Faery, explains that the goal of Love Your Liver “is to educate the general public about liver disease and the causes of primary liver cancer”—specifically, to inform people about ways to prevent HCC and other liver diseases.

 

As the campaign explains: “While we have dedicated time and energy to creating programs for research, education and advocacy that deal with HCC treatment and cure, we have not talked enough about prevention. Liver cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, yet it is highly preventable. We feel now is the time for us to focus on the prevention and early detection of HCC and other liver diseases.”

Woods founded Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association to advance the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and cure of HCC. In 2001, Woods lost her younger sister, Adrienne, whom she adopted and raised, to HCC. For a Cancer Health profile on Woods, read “Blue Faery, Liver Cancer and the Promise of New Drugs.”

Liver cancer develops when the organ’s cells grow out of control. While HCC originates in the liver, cancer can also spread to the liver from other areas of the body. What’s more, liver cancer can develop after long-term injury to the organ—for example, as a result of alcohol abuse or hepatitis B or C. To learn more, see the basics of liver cancer on CancerHealth.org. And to learn about hepatitis and related liver diseases, such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, alcoholic liver disease and autoimmune hepatitis, visit the Hepatitis Basics on HepMag.com.