pancreas

The pancreas is a rather narrow length gland. It lies behind the duodenum and contains a collection of cells called Langerhans islands. Langerhans Islands produce insulin and glucagon hormones used to regulate the amount of sugar in the blood. Insulin will convert blood glucose excess into glycogen and then stored in the liver and muscles. At a time when the body requires extra energy, glycogen stored in the liver will be modified by glucagon to glucose which can be used as additional energy.

Pancreas also contains cells that produce pancreatic Lymph. pancreatic Lymph is a digestive Lymph that has an important role in treating the three main groups of organic foods, namely carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. pancreatic Lymph is mainly composed of water, bicarbonate, and enzymes that can be categorized based on the enzyme trypsin, the enzyme amylase, and lipase.

Pancreatic Lymph flowed into duodenum via two channels along the pancreas. In the duodenum, bicarbonate neutralizes acid chymus. Trypsin work on proteins in the food and helped refine the process of digestion in the stomach with pepsin enzyme produced by the stomach. Amylase role in the continuing process of carbohydrate solution that had been initiated by the enzymes in saliva ptyalin. Meanwhile, the lipase has a role no less important in the process of splitting fat.

The development of an artificial pancreas, replacement of the beta cell mass using pluripotent stem cells, and transplantation of pancreatic islets isolated from cadaveric organs are the most promising approaches. At any given moment, any one of these approaches could lead to a breakthrough. Islet transplantation has emerged as a promising alternative to treat diabetes. Even when insulin independence has been achieved only for a relatively short period of time after an islets transplant, the metabolic improvement of an islet graft is clinically significant. The prevention of the immunorejection of an islets graft could make islets transplantation the cure of at least type 1 diabetes.