The Pancreas: A Tale of Two Cities
Welcome back to our “Tour of the Body” series! We’ll end our chapter on digestion with the pancreas, which well be a lovely segue into our next series chapter: the endocrine system.
Dual Roles
The pancreas looks a bit like a fish filet roughly the size of your hand, and, like the liver, it spans cross body, but it’s behind the stomach (on the left side). The head of the pancreas (about 3-6in straight up from your belly button) works closely with the gallbladder and the small intestines.
The pancreas has two important branches of action: exocrine and endocrine. Exo means outside, endo means inside, and crine stems from a Greek word meaning ‘sift’. Enzymes help us sift the outside as in digestion (exocrine) and hormones help us sift our internal milieu (endocrine).
Enzymes: Team Exocrine
It’s hard to imagine, but the pancreas makes somewhere between 1-4 liters of enzyme-rich juice every day (depending on what we eat). For perspective, a bottle of wine is roughly 1 liter. That’s a lot of enzyme-juice!
These enzymes get released into the pancreatic duct (it’s main pipeline) where they join forces with the contents of the bile duct (yup, lil green dude’s main pipeline) to enter into the small intestines where food breakdown gets serious.
What exactly is an enzyme?
An enzyme is a biological catalyst, and they’re usually made of protein. Basically, it’s a “do this faster” cheat code. Enzymes help us breathe, build muscle, conduct nerve signals, break down food and toxins, you know: live.
If you’ve ever bought digestive enzyme supplement, you’ll see on the back of the bottle things like “lipase”, “protease”, “lactase”. The “-ase” suffix means it’s an enzyme cheat code that’s helping break down the lipid, protein, or lactose molecules. Enzymes are highly specialized. Think of them like phone passwords, your password works on your phone, but it won’t unlock your partner’s. Same: a lipase enzyme won’t work on a protein.
Enzymes can also be effected by big pH or temperature shifts (just like, when it’s too hot, your phone says “buh-bye” regardless of you having the right password).
Fun fact: a lot of enzymes need a lil help: via a cofactor or coenzyme. These are our why vitamins and minerals are crucial. Coenzymes include: vitamin B9 (folic acid) vitamin B1 (thiamine), vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B3 (niacin), vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), and more. Cofactors include: magnesium, manganese, zinc, cobalt, and other metals and minerals.
But I digress!
Hormones: Team Endocrine
The pancreas has the monumental job of making our insulin, glucagon and somatostatin, which ultimately help regulate our blood sugar levels.
When your blood sugar gets too high, the beta cells in your pancreas make insulin to lower it. When it’s too low, the alpha cells make glucagon to raise it. Somatostatin is the body’s stop all. It inhibits the release of hormones and enzymes.
Insulin
Insulin escorts glucose (i.e. sugar) from circulation (your blood) into cells, throughout the body. Glucose comes from what you eat or drink, or when the liver releases stored glycogen. Glucose is our preferred fuel, and it can’t enter our cells without insulin (like a kid without a parent in an R rated film). Without insulin, sugar builds up in the blood stream, leading to diabetes.
Glucagon
Glucagon prevents your blood sugar from dropping too low; as in times of prolonged fasting, exercise, or protein-focused meals. Glucagon tells your liver to release glycogen (stored glucose) into your bloodstream.
Somatostatin
Also known as growth hormone inhibiting hormone (and a few other names). It’s basically the hormonal break pedal. It stops the production of other hormones when your body doesn’t need them (temporarily).
But how? What’s a hormone?
Hormones are biological signals. They’re messengers. They coordinate different functions throughout our bodies using our bloodstream as their “mail delivery” highway. The next chapter in our series will be all about ‘‘em! They’re what makes the endocrine system work.
