IT’S ALWAYS DISCONCERTING when a peer passes away. Yes, there’s the grieving. But it’s also natural to look at the untimely deaths of others for clues about our own health. What got them in the end? Were they seriously overweight, lifetime smokers? Were they mostly ... just like me?

So you can imagine my surprise upon learning that a guy I’d known since grade school had died from liver disease. I hadn’t paid much attention to my liver; because of my family history, my heart and brain have always been my biggest concerns. But what if I’ve been ignoring the wrong organs? How often do I consider my liver or, for that matter, my gallbladder, lungs, intestines or stomach?

Maybe my friend’s death was a canary in my personal health coal mine. I needed to take my other organs seriously. What could I do to extend their shelf life—and by extension, my own? I set out to have those difficult conversations. It was like the movie Fantastic Voyage but with a My Dinner With André vibe. Here’s what I learned.

L: Hold it right there! Nobody gets backstage body access without going through me. Food, booze, medications, nobody. [Eyes me up and down.] OK, you seem mostly nontoxic.

L: [Rolls eyes.] Yeah, I man the front desk while doing more than 500 different jobs. I remove toxins from your blood; I make bile to digest fat; I store sugar for energy; I turn extra glucose into glycogen; I make protein for blood plasma. But the brain gets all the glory. They put parts of Einstein’s brain in a museum. His liver? No. But I guarantee you, without his liver making glucose available to his brain, Einstein wouldn’t have known his E from his MC squared.

L: Well, try not to drink like you’re a Beat poet from the ’50s. But that cheese-steak isn’t doing me any favors either. For me to be healthy, you need to watch your weight and cholesterol. Ask your doctor about testing for hepatitis C even if you have no symptoms. Eat high-fiber foods like whole grains and fruits and veggies. Exercise.

L: Maybe if I got a day off. Listen, have that cheesesteak every once in a while, but maybe don’t make it a regular thing. Have a few cocktails during the week—just try not to have them all at once. Pretend your body is a high-end hotel and nobody gets upstairs without me checking their credentials. All I’m asking is, don’t invite all your rowdiest friends on the same night. I only have so many hands.

L: Hey, you’re the one talking to an anthropomorphic internal organ.

L: Nah, that’s a myth. Those spots are actually just skin blemishes caused by sun damage. Nothing to do with me! If you’re looking for symptoms of cirrhosis or fatty liver, look out for things like swollen legs and ankles, jaundice, abdominal pain, extreme fatigue, dark urine or musty breath.

L: Yeah. If your oral hygiene is OK but your breath still smells like rotten eggs and garlic, I am not doing OK. And it won’t always be that obvious, especially at the start of liver disease. It’s not a bad idea to get a hepatic function test as part of your annual metabolic panel. Don’t wait till I start pounding on your rib cage in protest to see if there’s something wrong.

Right lung: No time to talk. Very busy! We’re taking 17,000 breaths a day! Six million breaths a year! Hold on: A cough’s coming. [The room reverberates like it’s an earthquake.]

Left lung: No, it’s perfectly normal to cough occasionally throughout the day—unless you’re a smoker. Smoking is still the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. And let’s not even get started on e-cigarettes. Plus, there are other threats—everything from air pollution to secondhand smoke to radon. Your best defense is a good offense.

RL: Breathe! Anything that fills us with oxygen is gonna help us keep healthy. Take a brisk walk. Sing along with the radio. Blow up a balloon. Or just laugh. Laughter gets rid of all the stale air so we can pull in more fresh oxygen. You wanna hear a joke? What do you call a lung thief? [Dramatic pause.] Breathtaking! 

LL: I’m sorry, we need to get back to work. [Whispers to right lung.] We’ll discuss this later.

Gallbladder: [Without looking up.] Liver is upstairs. Intestines are the next floor down.

G: Me? Really? Wow. I’m not used to getting much attention. Most people don’t even remember I exist until it’s the holidays, and they’ve eaten too much of Grandma’s buttery mashed potatoes, and their upper right abdomen starts throbbing and they end up at the ER.

G: Every Thanksgiving and Christmas like clockwork. They eat their body weight in saturated fats and refined carbohydrates and think, I’m sure one of my vital organs will break down all this fat.

G: Technically, yeah. And I can mostly handle whatever you throw at me. But sometimes things start to build up—mostly cholesterol—and my bile acid can’t handle it all, and it solidifies into a gallstone. One of them lodges in my duct, and things back up like New York during a garbage strike.

G: Well … I am an important part of this process, but I don’t know if I’d call myself indispensable. About 300,000 people in the U.S. get their gallbladder removed every year. The bile just goes straight from the liver to the small intestine.

G: Hey, don’t even think about it. Did you know people with pancreatic cancer are six times more likely to have had gallstone disease the year before their diagnosis? Plus, I’m a fun guy. I love wine! Two glasses per day can reduce my chances of getting gallstones. Same with coffee: Drinking more than 6 cups a day is associated with a 23 percent lower risk. You want some coffee now?

G: How about some healthy fat, like nuts or olives? At least 10 grams of fat per meal helps me empty the bile.

Sounds great. [Slowly backing away.] I’ll be in touch!

Kidneys: You can’t be serious. It’s happening again?

Bladder: I’m not sure why you think badgering me about it will help.

K: Mr. Bladder over here is being shy all of a sudden.

B: Hey, shy bladder syndrome is a real thing. And it’s not my fault. I don’t have anxiety—the brain does.

K: Maybe not in the short term. But holding in your pee for too long can overstretch and weaken the bladder or lead to a urinary tract infection or even something really serious, like causing us to swell and possibly get infected, and then all that bacteria can leak into the bloodstream.

K: Peeing your pants? You think everyone over 50 is peeing their pants?

B: Incontinence is common. A quarter to a third of people in the U.S. have at least a little bladder incontinence. But there are things you can do that may help control or at least minimize it. Get your prostate checked, do pelvic-floor exercises, lose weight and quit smoking, and look into possible causes like diabetes and urinary tract infection.

K: When we’ve got a problem, you’ll know about it. We had kidney stones a few years ago, and the brain thought we were gonna die.

K: Yeah, but that doesn’t mean avoid eating foods high in calcium. My stones can be caused by a number of factors, including eating too much salt and animal protein, particularly lots of red meat. Also, stress can be a contributing factor.

K and B: Drink more water!

B: Yes. Please. Women should consume at least 11.5 glasses [92 ounces] of water and other fluids per day, and men should gulp down around 15.5 glasses [124 ounces]—although you can get a lot of that fluid from fruits and vegetables as well as drinks.

K: If you’re peeing more than once a night, that’s called nocturia. It’s caused by anything from an enlarged prostate to hormone changes and sleep disorders, and in some cases could even be a sign of heart failure. If you cut down on nighttime drinks but keep waking up with the urge to pee, you should absolutely tell your doctor.

B: Speaking of peeing … fellas, I’ve got great news. The levee’s about to break!

Stomach: It’s about time! You would not believe the rumors going around about me. Ulcers are caused by spicy foods! Don’t swim for at least half an hour after eating or you’ll get stomach cramps and drown!

S: Not even close! The swimming thing was a myth that goes at least as far back as the Boy Scouts handbook in 1908. As for ulcers, they’re usually caused by a kind of bacteria. Stay away from contaminated foods and dirty water, and we should be fine. And nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen aren’t great for me if you pop them like breath mints. But it’s not like you’re giving me cancer or something.

S: Well, it’s a thing. But it’s not the scary thing it was about a century ago. In the 1930s, it was the leading cause of death from cancer. But that was before everyone had refrigerators, when cured meats high in nitrites were a part of everybody’s diet. Now people are eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, which is a good thing for all of us organs, but especially me.

S: OK, first of all, it’s a movie. Explode, no. But rupture? Maybe, but it’s very, very rare. Even in competitive eaters.

S: We stomachs are remarkably elastic. You tell us we can’t do something, we do it anyway. And Joey Chestnut’s stomach—he may not have even hit the stomach ceiling yet.

S: Competitive eaters could theoretically eat up to 84 hot dogs in under 10 minutes before they reach their capacity, according to one study.

S: Not exactly. Bloating is caused by too much gas in your gastrointestinal tract, or a condition like gastroparesis, where I’m too slow to empty. There are lots of reasons.

S: Oh, diet matters quite a bit. Just make smarter choices. Avoid processed foods like white bread, cookies, cake, candy—a high-fiber diet makes a big difference.

S: Could be. I don’t know. You’d have to ask the intestines.

S: No. Be honest: You don’t know what the gut microbiome is.

S: Talk to the intestines. Ask them about … [lowers voice, looks side to side] gluten. Word on the street is, they can’t handle it.

Small intestine: Is that what your stomach said?

SI: If you have celiac disease, then absolutely stay away from gluten. But an estimated quarter of Americans are on gluten-free diets, and only a fraction of them actually need to be. We have trillions of microbes down here. I can handle a little gluten.

LI: It’s all so important, I just get ... I get so overwhelmed.

LI: If a friend was sad, would you punch them in the face? That’s what it’s like when you eat ultra-processed food like chips, cookies or those bright orange crunchy things.

LI: Eat a variety of plants. Any whole grains like those found in whole wheat bread or oatmeal are considered plants. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, even spices fall into the plant category.

SI: Or try meditating. Researchers studied the stools of Tibetan monks and found that the monks’ microbiota were enriched with bacteria linked to a decreased risk of anxiety, depression and heart disease.

SI: Will you please just eat a vegetable so this poor guy can get his emotions in check?