The Pancreas

The pancreas is a quiet organ. You do not feel it as long as it functions — and when you do feel it, something has usually gone seriously out of balance. A dull pressure in the upper abdomen, a pain that pulls through to the back, a digestion that falls out of rhythm, or a blood sugar curve that rides a rollercoaster. What happens here you often only notice when the barrel has already overflowed.

Medicine describes the pancreas as a dual gland: it produces digestive enzymes that break down your food, and it produces insulin and glucagon, which regulate the sugar in your blood. Two tasks that at first glance have little to do with each other — and that together nonetheless describe something very fundamental: the question of how you take in, process, and make available to yourself the sweetness of life.