Your liver does all kinds of work that’s critical to your health. It helps break down food, clean your blood, make proteins, and store energy. If things go wrong with it, you might have a number of symptoms, from a yellow coloring of your skin to slurred speech. That’s when you might need a liver test.
There’s actually not just one test. Your doctor will choose from several tests that check levels of different proteins and enzymes in your blood. Enzymes are special kinds of proteins that help speed up certain reactions in your body.
Some of the tests look for enzymes that you’d find in your blood only when your liver is damaged or has a disease. Others check to see whether that organ is working as expected.