Page 101 - The Miraculous Machine that Works for an Entire Lifetime: Enzyme

Adnan Oktar

en. Foods arriving from the stomach must not carry the stomach's acid-

ity with them into the small intestine. Specific enzymes for digesting
still-undigested foodstuffs also need to be present; and the environ-
ment needs to be regulated so as to make all this possible. Chemical
messengers need to act accordingly, and helper molecules need to be on
hand. It is the pancreas, a very special organ, that secretes the particu-
lar juice for all of these tasks.

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T The Pancreas: The Factory That Produces Digestive Enzymes s

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The pancreas is a small organ, six inches in size and three ounces
in weight. It is named the body's "hidden organ" because of its location
concealed behind the stomach. It contains fine, interconnected tubes or
vessels that come together in the form of a doorway opening into the
duodenum, where pancreatic juice passes through, to play a life-saving
role for the intestine.
Despite its small size, the pancreas performs a very important
function in secreting digestive enzymes, which are transported to the
digestive system in what is known as pancreatic juice. There are other
moderating factors in this fluid, of which the pancreas produces up to
5 liters a day —very high level of production for a organ weighing just
63
3 ounces.
The production of pancreatic juice is triggered when the duode-
num encounters gastric juice. After leaving the stomach, foodstuffs
have assumed a rather pulpy consistency and they first arrive at the
duodenum. This mixture arriving from the stomach is powerfully
acidic enough to dissolve the thin, delicate interior of the duodenum.
Yet this does not happen, because pancreatic juice is alkaline, neutral-
izing the acidity in question. Foodstuffs are thus able to pass into the
small intestine without endangering it...
The production of pancreatic juice is a controlled process. When
you sit down at the dinner table, thousands of tiny saclike cavities, or
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