{"id":1219,"date":"2008-08-20T12:28:43","date_gmt":"2008-08-20T12:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/166.62.41.2\/~holaamericanews\/2008\/08\/20\/health-spotlight-the-pancreas\/"},"modified":"2008-08-20T12:28:43","modified_gmt":"2008-08-20T12:28:43","slug":"health-spotlight-the-pancreas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/health-spotlight-the-pancreas\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Spotlight: The Pancreas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The pancreas is located next to the liver, in your abdomen or belly.  This organ is basically a giant gland. This means that it is responsible for making and releasing hormones and enzymes needed by other parts of the body. The pancreas is mainly involved in the process of digestion (breaking down and taking into the body the usable parts of the food we eat).

The first way that it helps with this process is by producing 4 different enzymes (molecules that make specific chemical reactions go much faster) and a sodium bicarbonate solution. This solution, and the enzymes in it, flow through ducts to the beginning of the small intestine (called the duodenum). The sodium bicarbonate (this is the same as baking soda) solution is needed to neutralize the acid coming out of the stomach. The 4 enzymes are called trypsin, chymotrypsin, pancreatic lipase, and pancreatic amylase. Trypsin and chymotrypsin break down any proteins that you eat into parts small enough to enter your body. Pancreatic lipase helps to break down any fats that you eat and pancreatic amylase works to break down starch into sugar.<\/p>\n

The pancreas also has cells arranged into what are called the islets of Langerhans. These cells are directly connected to the bloodstream (the blood going to all the cells of your body and pumped by the heart). These cells make 4 different hormones (a signal telling other cells what to do). All 4 of these hormones are very important in determining how our bodies respond to sugar. Insulin is a well known hormone. This hormone is released by the pancreas when there is too much sugar present in the blood and tells the cells to let the sugar in the blood into the cells. Glucagon is another hormone released by the pancreas. This hormone has the opposite effect of insulin. It is released when there is too little sugar in the blood, and tells the liver to bring sugar out of storage and put it back into the blood. An imbalance in these hormones can lead to one of the two serious conditions known as either high blood sugar (hyperglycemia) or low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). <\/p>

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The pancreas is located next to the liver, in your abdomen or belly.  This organ is basically a giant gland. This means that it is responsible for making and releasing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t