Michael:

All right. We’ve got a few more. We got pancreatin.

Kiran:

Yeah.

Michael:

Pancreatin is another one I think I see in digestive enzymes that’s also in systemic enzymes, and I’m guessing, this is my physiology genius at play here, that it’s produced by the pancreas.

Kiran:

Okay. Exactly. Yeah.

Pancreatin is actually kind of a collection of a few different enzymes. Their primary role is for digestion. Your body secretes a couple liters of pancreatin throughout the day into the duodenum itself through the pancreas. Their primary role is in digesting food and breaking down carbohydrates and fats and proteins. Some pancreatin can be seen to be used systemically as well. So it tends to become important people who are above the age of 25 to 27 because studies show that once you’ve reached 25 or 27, your body’s ability to make pancreatin actually starts to drop and so you actually get lack of digestion of your food. That actually will create more stress on your pancreas because it tries to keep up with the production of pancreatin. When you create stress in your pancreas, you’re also creating stress on the Islet cells. Islet cells, of course, are the Islets of Langerhans cells that produce insulin.

So there’s a correlation between overeating and the development of Type-II Diabetes and killing off your Islet cells because your pancreas is trying too hard and undergoing a lot of stress to try to produce enough pancreatin to break down the food. So, especially if you’re over the age of 25, 27, certainly in your 30s and 40s, it’s important to take some pancreatin. If you have any pancreatic issues like, you know, pancreatitis or other diseases that affect your pancreas or taking medications that affect your pancreas, pancreatin is important as well.

One note to keep in mind is, there have been some reports of people that have allergic reactions to pancreatic enzymes or pancreatin that’s found in enzyme products so when you take an enzyme product that contains pancreatin, start with small dose. Take a one or two caps. If the dose is three to four caps, take half or a quarter of the dose just to make sure you don’t have an allergic reaction to it. The allergic reaction is rare. But just a precaution.