A girl with character. Pancreas

A girl with character. Pancreas.

In the close-knit and hardworking family of our internal organs, there is one small organ that is overshadowed by its more famous brothers. After all, if they knew about the work of the heart and the working liver in ancient times, the pancreas for a long time remained a complete mystery for doctors. The pancreas performs a number of important functions for your body, one might even say vital. This is a gland of external and internal secretion. It secretes pancreatic (pancreatic) juice - one of the three components that are involved in the process of digesting food entering the body. Of course, without pancreatic juice, the other two components (hydrochloric acid and bile) will not be able to cope with this difficult task.

But most importantly, the pancreas produces the hormones insulin and glucagon, which enter directly into the blood and regulate carbohydrate and fat metabolism in your body. Is it worth reminding that if the processes responsible for blood sugar levels are disrupted, a person becomes a target for dangerous and as yet incurable diabetes.

Mysterious tadpole

Our heroine is similar in appearance to a pretty tadpole - she has a head, a body and a tail. Its length is 20 cm, width and thickness 3-4 cm. It lives behind the posterior wall of the stomach at the level of the upper (first and second) lumbar vertebrae, comfortably located between the stomach, spleen and duodenum on the sides and the kidney below. The head is adjacent to the duodenum, and the tail rests on the spleen. And she got her name from her location - behind the back wall of the stomach.

By the way, medical scientists learned about the functions of the pancreas relatively recently - in the second half of the 19th century! Academician I.P. himself Pavlov argued that the pancreas is not at all so simple. And of course, he was absolutely right!

Professional chemist

This little girl with a ponytail jokingly does the work of an entire chemical laboratory.

Externally, the pancreas is a glandular organ of a whitish-gray color, reminiscent in appearance of boiled meat. It is covered with a thin capsule, the branches of which penetrate deep into the gland and divide it into segments, like an orange. In the layers between the lobules hide blood and lymph nodes, nerves and excretory ducts, which begin inside the secretory cells, then enlarge and, merging, flow into the main excretory duct. It goes, expanding twice, along the entire gland - from the tail to the head.

The length of the main excretory duct is 15-17 cm. Thanks to its smoothness, pancreatic juice easily and quickly passes all the way to the papilla of Vater of the duodenum, where it merges with the common bile duct. At the point where these two ducts flow into the duodenum there is a smooth muscle hill - the sphincter of Oddi, which, like a dam on a reservoir, regulates the flow of bile and pancreatic juice.

I work for two

The secretion of pancreatic juice is certainly an important function of the pancreas. But its main task is the production of insulin - a valuable hormone that comes from the pancreas directly into the bloodstream.

So, the result of the external secretory activity of our heroine is pancreatic juice - a colorless alkaline liquid, which includes organic and inorganic substances. The most important part of the juice is the enzymes. And each of them has designated functions. Amylase, invertase and lactase are responsible for the breakdown of carbohydrates, lipase breaks down fats, and trypsin breaks down proteins.

The task of internal secretion is the production of hormones: glucagon and insulin affect carbohydrate balance, fat metabolism depends on lipocaine. Thus, a small but very efficient pancreas successfully combines two complex functions: promotes digestion and enriches the blood with insulin.

Dangers around the corner

The pancreas appreciates ber