The pancreas is an organ of the digestive system and endocrine system of vertebrates. In humans, it is located in the abdomen behind the stomach and functions as a gland. The pancreas is a mixed or heterocrine gland, i.e. it has both an endocrine and a digestive exocrine function. 99% part of pancreas is exocrine and 1% part is endocrine. As an endocrine gland, it functions mostly to regulate blood sugar levels, secreting the hormones insulin, glucagon, somatostatin, and pancreatic polypeptide. Regardless of what it is and does, I’m going to be listing the 10 amazing ways to keep your pancreas healthy.
—
As a part of the digestive system, it functions as an exocrine gland secreting pancreatic juice into the duodenum through the pancreatic duct. This juice contains bicarbonate, which neutralizes acid entering the duodenum from the stomach; and digestive enzymes, which break down carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in food entering the duodenum from the stomach. Insulin, arguably the most important hormone secreted by the pancreas, is secreted from the pancreatic islets (isle of Langerhans). If you don’t protect your pancreas, you can become diabetic and die with little control over your insulin. Something like diabetes (stops producing insulin) is a negative health consequence, and it can can spell disaster for the rest of the body.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Pancreas Healthy
1. Eat a Healthy Diet
Eating a healthy diet is always important for your health, and this health can extend to your pancreas. If you eat a diet rich in nutrients, including your vitamins and minerals, you’ll find that you feel better. The more you avoid eating highly processed and refined foods, the more your pancreas will appreciate it. This means that you should avoid eating too much sugar and refined carbs. Carbohydrates can exacerbate weight gain and will cause obesity, which can be a sign and cause of diabetes. If you have diabetes, you know that you don’t have to be fat to have it, especially with type 1. This means that you should be sure to avoid abusing your system by eating a low-carb and high-fat and protein diet. Diets such as the ketogenic diet are a good start when trying to prevent complications and other pancreas related diseases.
—
As mentioned, dieting is very important. If you want to avoid illnesses that can lead to your pancreas ceasing production of important hormones, diet well. To best achieve those goals, it is important for pancreatitis patients to eat high protein, nutrient-dense diets. This diet can include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low fat dairy, and other lean protein sources.
—
Abstinence from alcohol and greasy or fried foods is important in helping to prevent malnutrition and pain. It’s important to avoid eating too much or too little, and the better you feel, the more it is a sign of good health. While calorie intake is not quite as important as the kind of macro or micro, they are associated with each other. If you eat only sugar, then you will get fat and be less satisfied. This will make you eat and stress more, but with some discipline, it can all go away.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Pancreas Healthy
2. Intermittent Fast
Fasting (fasting detox), including periodic prolonged and intermittent fasting, can be a life saver. Fasting can help reproduce pancreatic cells that can help control blood sugar and insulin. The more you mix this with a healthy diet, the more you will find yourself not having to rely on sugar to feel good. Insulin resistance (insulin not being produced or receptive in the cells) is one of the leading causes of long-term health complications in the world, but it can be reversed. Even type 2 diabetes can be prevented or cured (with fasting and some time), instead of feeding the illness with medications from a doctor. The growth hormone production, along with the autophagy and blood sugar stabilization can do wonders for you body and pancreas. Be sure to consider this the next time you eat that candy bar.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Pancreas Healthy
3. Exercise
Exercise is very useful in helping keep your pancreas healthy and functional in a number of ways. Just like fasting, it can induce a process called a autophagy (cleaning and recycling damaged cells and proteins). Also, like fasting and a healthy diet, it can reduce visceral fat around your organs, including the pancreas. This weight loss can help reduce the risks of pancreatic cancer that takes years to develop, so you have time. The more you give your body a chance to recover from bad habits, the better you’ll feel in the end.
—
Two weeks of exercise reduces pancreatic fat, improves beta cell function. Two weeks of exercise training improves beta cell function and reduces pancreatic fat in adults with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, research suggests. All around, staying healthy includes getting around 150 minutes worth of moderate intensity cardiovascular exercise. This will help you pump blood to your organs and keep them healthy, too. You can even gain health and weight loss potential by gaining muscle doing resistance training exercises.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Pancreas Healthy
4. Take Supplements
Taking supplements is a good idea when you have to take them. Otherwise, they may not be as useful or necessary when you’re taking everything else into consideration. While they can offer a boost, you don’t always want to do it. Although, it’s always nice to stack up your health for anything that can prop up. All in all, there is nothing wrong with taking a supplement, just be sure to do some research and know what you’re getting.
—
The first thing you should consider is getting your nutrients in eating healthy foods. You can’t do this by eating processed and refined foods because of their lack of nutritional value. Unless you want to eat a lot of unhealthy crap and get fat in the process, you should eat whole and satisfying foods. Beyond that, there are plenty of really good organic and well-tested branded supplements out there for the pancreas.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Pancreas Healthy
5. See a Doctor
Seeing a doctor is the obvious choice when you have no other option. Being sure to consult with a healthcare professional is always important when you’re trying to see if all is alright. If you sense a problem, be sure to check with a doctor to make sure that all is okay. The earlier you catch something, the better. This is why it’s so important to get a yearly checkup for your body and vitals. This will make you see if there are any underlying problems that need to be check, including your blood sugars. A checkup will take everything into consideration and trace it back to it’s origins, including blood work. If you want your doctor to check something, be sure to let them know, and be sure to ask a lot of questions (and let them know what you know) if you have them.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Pancreas Healthy
6. Avoid Stress
When you avoid stress, you’re also avoiding strain on the body. This can come in the form of giving your body time to rest and sleep, to avoiding stressful behaviors and habits. If you’re exercising every day or doing it too much without rest, you will find that you will be tired, exhausted, and unable to do work. This can lead you to stressing out because you can’t do the work that pays the bills. Your stress can lead to problems with your body and mind, and then between the two, become a sick cycle that keeps on repeating itself over and over.
—
The best thing you can do to avoid stress is understand what the problem is by staying healthy, getting enough rest, and figuring out what psychologically ails you. While it’s not always easy, it’s certainly necessary. It can cause overeating and strain on the heart and other organs, making it easier to gain weight and overeat. The more you do this, the more you make your body susceptible to illnesses of the pancreas. This is the last thing you want in need on your road to being healthy.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Pancreas Healthy
7. Avoid Drugs
Drugs, even the ones given to you by a doctor, can be harmful to your body. There are so many side effects to medications these days. This is one of the reasons why so many people look for natural solutions that will not kill you in the process of “helping” you. Doctors don’t always have the answers, and even if it’s called a medication, it’s still a hard drug. These hard drugs, including alcohol and cigarettes, can cause all sorts of problems for your system. When you have one problem in your body, it can lead to all sorts of other problems.
—
Since the pancreas is essentially another filter of the body, the more it has to produce, the worse it gets. This is why consuming too much sugar (alcohol) is bad, because the body will no longer feel a need to produce what it’s getting from the diet. Sugar is also a leading cause of cancer, so it’s best to avoid, because even sugar is a hardcore drug. Drugs can drain the system and cause all sorts of negligence and malnutrition. Being too skinny or fat can be the problem, and they’re both signs of pancreatic problems.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Pancreas Healthy
8. Keep a Healthy Weight
Be a healthy weight is important because of it’s overall impact on your health. If you’re carrying around a bunch of subcutaneous (under the skin) and visceral (around the organs) fat, you’re screwed. Since you don’t want to be screwed, you should consider putting less stress on the overall structure of your body. Being over or under weight is both a sign and cause of these problems, including diabetes and pancreatitis.
—
These problems should not be something you have to deal with if you maintain your health properly to begin with. Obesity has been considered as a risk factor for pancreatic diseases, including pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. Severe acute pancreatitis is significantly more frequent in obese patients. Furthermore, obese patients develop systemic and local complications of acute pancreatitis more frequently.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Pancreas Healthy
9. Protect Yourself
You should protect your body, and this means that you should protect your pancreas, too. If you’re looking to maintain overall physical healthy, it means that you should not expose yourself to harm that can further lead to pancreatic problems and complications. This only means that you should avoid taking physical risks for your health, because you never know how it can affect you. The more you take the proper precautions, the better off you and your pancreas will be in the end.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Pancreas Healthy
10. Avoid Getting Sick
It’s no mystery that if you get sick, the more you expose yourself to vulnerabilities that can exacerbate a problem. If you’re constantly getting sick, it can be a sign of a weakened immune system that has an underlying cause. It can lead to pancreatic problems or be because of these problems that can become worse. The more you keep up with you health, the more you can avoid these underlying issues. You can even evade getting them to begin with if you take the right steps in getting yourself in shape.
Final Thoughts: The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Pancreas Healthy
There’s so much to say about health and staying healthy, because there are so many moving parts. If you miss one variable, it can be the difference between life and death. Being able to avoid thinking about it too much can be overlooked if you don’t evade what’s important to begin with. Even if some things are beyond our control, it does not mean that we can’t figure out the problem early one. Along with your pancreas, be sure to stay healthy and do the right things as best as you can. There’s no such thing as perfect health, but it does not mean that there isn’t a better direction to take. In at least trying to maintain it, be sure to take some of this advice with you so that you can be healthy. With a healthy approach comes a healthier mindset.