The Pancreas is an unsung hero of the body and plays a crucial role in keeping you alive, working silently in the background to help your body to maintain glucose homeostasis – that is balancing your blood sugar levels based on what you eat (or what you haven’t eaten, if you haven’t eaten for a while or are fasting). And it does its best to keep that balance through the production of different hormones including Insulin and Glucagon.
It is about 15 cm in length, located in the abdomen just behind the stomach. It is also an important part of the digestive system, producing digestive enzymes that help to break down carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in the food you eat.
We only tend to notice an unhappy Pancreas when things start to go wrong with it – with Diabetes (Type 1 and Type 2) being amongst the most common dysfunctions.
