Wordology, Pancreas

Inside your abdomen is your pancreas, just behind and below the stomach. It is a long, flat organ that is connected to the small intestines.

It is part of the digestive system and releases digestive enzymes into the small intestines that help to break down food, so your body can extract the nutrients it needs. It also produces sodium bicarbonate, which neutralizes acids that find their way from the stomach into the small intestines.

The pancreas also secretes important hormones your body needs, such as insulin and glucagon to help to regulate blood sugar levels in your body.

Incidentally, the abdomen is an area of the body that contains most of the tube-like organs of the digestive tract, as well as several solid organs. Hollow abdominal organs include the stomach, the small intestine, and the colon with its attached appendix. Organs such as the liver, its attached gallbladder, and the pancreas function in close association with the digestive tract and communicate with it via ducts. The spleen, kidneys, and adrenal glands also lie within the abdomen, along with many blood vessels including the aorta. 

Eight Interesting Body Facts

More germs are transferred shaking hands than kissing.

The aorta, the largest artery in the body, is almost the diameter of a garden hose.

Capillaries are so small that it takes ten of them to equal the thickness of a human hair.

Your body has about 6 quarts (5.6 Liters) of blood. It circulates through the body three times every minute.

The heart pumps about 1 million barrels of blood during an average lifetime.

The human body can function without a brain (although not long).

Humans are the only primates that do not have pigment in the palms of their hands

A mans testicles manufacture 10 million new sperm cells each day, enough to repopulate the entire planet in 6 months.