What does the pancreas do? - Emma Bryce
Beneath your ribs, you'll find,
among other things, the pancreas,
an organ that works a lot
like a personal health coach.
This organ controls your sugar levels
and produces a special juice
that releases the nutrients from your food
to help keep you
in the best possible shape.
The pancreas sits just
behind your stomach,
an appropriate home, as one of its jobs
is to break down the food you eat.
It aids digestion by producing
a special tonic made of water,
sodium bicarbonate,
and digestive enzymes.
Sodium bicarbonate neutralizes
the stomach's natural acidity,
so these digestive enzymes
can perform their jobs.
Lipase breaks down fatty substances,
protease splits up proteins,
and amylase divides carbohydrates
to create energy-rich sugars.
Most of those nutrients then get absorbed
into the blood stream,
and go on to enrich the body.
While all this is happening, the pancreas
works on another critical task,
controlling the amount
of sugar in your blood.
It achieves this with the hormones
insulin and glucagon,
which are produced in special cells
called the Islets of Langerhans.
Having too much or too little sugar
can be life threatening,
so the pancreas must
stay on constant alert.
After a big meal, the blood often
becomes flushed with sugar.
To bring us back to normal,
the pancreas releases insulin,
which makes the excess sugar
move into cells,
where it's either used
as an energy source, or stored for later.
Insulin also tells the liver
to shut down sugar production.
On the other hand, if blood sugar is low,
the pancreas releases
a hormone called glucagon
that tells the body's cells and liver
to release stored sugars
back into the bloodstream.
The interplay between insulin and glucagon
is what keeps our sugar levels balanced.
But a faulty pancreas can no longer
coach us like this,
meaning that this healthy
balance is destroyed.
If it's weakened by disease,
the organ's ability to produce insulin
may be reduced, or even extinguished,
which can trigger the condition
known as diabetes.
Without regular insulin release,
sugar steadily builds up in the blood,
eventually hardening the blood vessels
and causing heart attacks,
kidney failure,
and strokes.
The same lack of insulin deprives cells
of the energy-rich sugar
they need to grow and function.
People with diabetes also tend to have
higher levels of glucagon,
which makes even more sugar circulate.
Without this internal health coach,
our sugar levels would go haywire,
and we wouldn't be able
to digest important nutrients.
But like any coach,
it's not the pancreas' job
alone to keep us healthy.
It needs our conscious participation, too.
