| VIVO Pathophysiology | Endocrine System |
The Endocrine Pancreas: Introduction and Index
The pancreas houses two distinctly different tissues. The bulk of its mass is exocrine tissue and associated ducts, which produce an alkaline fluid loaded with digestive enzymes which is delivered to the small intestine to facilitate digestion of foodstuffs. Scattered throughout the exocrine tissue are several hundred thousand clusters of endocrine cells which produce the hormones insulin, glucagon, and several other hormones.
Most people have some appreciation that precise and sustained regulation of the concentration of glucose in blood is of critical importance to an animal's wellbeing and that diabetes is somehow related to abnormalities in "levels of blood sugar". For such an important physiologic task, we have evolved redundant mechanisms to maximize the fidelity of such control. Insulin and glucagon are critical participants in glucose homeostasis and serve as acute regulators of blood glucose concentration, but as we will see, several other less well known hormones from the pancreas and gastrointestinal tract and involved in fulfilling this overall goal.
Core information on the endocrine pancreas and pancreatic hormones is presented in the following topics:
Advanced and supplemental topics related to pancreatic hormones:
- Diabetes mellitus
- Other pancreatic hormones
- Amylin
- Somatostatin (Other Endocrine Tissues and Hormones)
- Pancreatic Polypeptide
- Histology of the Pancreas (Digestive System)
Send comments to Richard.Bowen@colostate.edu