Introduction

Your liver is important for cleaning up any potentially dangerous substances you
consume. But how does it do it? — With a little help from some complex
chemistry. Within your liver, as within every tissue in the body, many chemical
reactions occur. Often these reactions require "help" to happen at a faster speed,
and this can be supplied by enzymes—tiny types of proteins.

The liver uses specialized enzymes to help it break down toxic substances and
make them safer for the body to process. But an enzyme, just like the chemical
reactions it modifies, needs certain conditions to do its work. So, some
environments can make a liver enzyme effective, whereas others can prevent it
from working at all.

Background
A chemical reaction occurs when compounds come together and their molecules
interact to form new compounds. Sometimes these reactions happen by
themselves, are usually very fast and spontaneous, and give off energy. Other
chemical reactions need energy, without which they would proceed very slowly or
not at all. Enzymes can help speed up these types of chemical reactions.

Enzymes are large proteins that speed up the rate of a chemical reaction by acting
as a catalyst. A catalyst provides the necessary environment for the reaction to
occur, thereby quickening it. Certain catalysts work for certain kinds of reactions;
in other words, each enzyme has a particular type of reaction that it can activate.
Enzymes can be very fussy and sometimes need to be in certain environments or
conditions to work well—or at all. Some enzymes can even be damaged, such as
when exposed to too much heat. A damaged enzyme may no longer work to
catalyze a chemical reaction.

Catalase is an enzyme in the liver that breaks down harmful hydrogen peroxide
into oxygen and water. When this reaction occurs, oxygen gas bubbles escape and
create foam.