Your Pancreas and Diabetes: Understanding the Link

Whether you have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, there is a connection between your pancreas and diabetes. So, it helps to understand the role that your pancreas plays in the onset of the disease.

The pancreas is an organ that deep in your belly (abdomen) behind your stomach and in front of your spine.  The pancreas is both part of your digestive system, which produces enzymes to help digest food, and your endocrine system. The latter, which consists of glands, releases hormones into your blood that are essential to maintaining healthy blood sugar levels: glucagon and insulin.

To keep your organs, like your heart, liver, kidneys, and brain working properly, your body needs balanced blood sugar. When your blood sugar is too low, your pancreas creates glucagon to prevent it from dropping too low. When your blood sugar is too high, your pancreas creates insulin to lower it.

Your pancreas and diabetes

Relative to your pancreas and diabetes, after you eat, beta cells in the pancreas produce insulin and release it into the bloodstream. From there, insulin moves glucose from the blood into your body’s cells, which absorb the sugar from food to use it for energy and other essential processes. When the pancreas fails to do its job in producing and regulating insulin to transform food into accessible cell energy, the result often is diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is considered an autoimmune disease. The immune system mistakes the body’s own healthy cells as foreign invaders. In response, the immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Once these cells are destroyed, the body is unable to produce insulin.

With Type 2 diabetes, the relationship between insulin and your pancreas is different. In this case, the pancreas does not produce enough insulin. Furthermore, cells do not respond well to insulin and as a result take in less glucose. Type 2 is the more common of the two, accounting for 90 to 95 percent of all cases.[1]

Another type of diabetes is gestational. During pregnancy, gestational diabetes can develop among some women, even though they do not already have the condition. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that each year, gestational diabetes affects 5 percent to 9 percent of pregnancies in the United States.[2]

Just as with other types of diabetes, gestational diabetes affects how cells use sugar (glucose). When you are pregnant, your body makes more hormones and goes through other changes, including weight gain. The changes you experience can result in insulin resistance, which means your body’s cells use insulin less effectively. 

Diabetes and pancreatis

Pancreatitis inflammation of the pancreas. There are two types. Acute pancreatitis comes on suddenly and only lasts a few days. With chronic pancreatitis, symptoms come and go over many years.

Research shows that people with Type 2 diabetes have a higher risk of developing pancreatitis. A study in Taiwan found that people with diabetes had nearly twice the increased risk of acute pancreatitis compared to people without diabetes. As to why diabetes increases the risk for acute pancreatitis, researchers theorize that Type 2 insulin resistance and high blood glucose levels are key factors associated with the higher risk of acute pancreatitis in people who have diabetes. Other research suggests that certain types of diabetes medications may increase the risk of pancreatitis. [3]

Also, individuals with chronic pancreatitis may increase their chance of getting diabetes because inflammation damages cells in the pancreas that produce insulin and glucagon, increasing the risk of developing diabetes.

Diabetes and pancreatic cancer

There is a link between Type 2 diabetes and pancreatic cancer. Living with diabetes for a long time is a known risk of pancreatic cancer. If you have Type 2 diabetes, you are up to twice as likely to have pancreatic cancer as someone who does not have the condition. The chances of getting pancreatic cancer increase if you have had diabetes for a while -- 5 years or longer -- than if you do not have it at all. [4]

The link between diabetes Type 2 and pancreatic cancer is not clear. It may have something to do with higher-than-normal levels of insulin circulating in the blood, high blood sugar, and long-term inflammation caused by Type 2 diabetes.[5]

While it is rare, pancreatic cancer can also cause diabetes because it destroys the cells in the organ that make insulin. If doctors have taken out all or part of your pancreas to treat your pancreatic cancer, you cannot make insulin anymore, and you will end up with diabetes.[6]

The pancreas is important in managing and/or preventing diabetes because of its insulin-producing capabilities, so you need to take care of it. Talk to your doctor about foods to eat, which include lean proteins and low-glycemic foods, such as whole grain, fruits and vegetables, and nuts. Also limit foods with added sugars. Make lifestyle changes as well, which include abstaining or limiting alcohol consumption, do not smoke, manage stress, and lose weight, if you are overweight.