St. Pancreas[1]
St Pancreas – my patron saint,
For when I’m low, or feeling faint,
‘tis to St Pancreas I will turn
With rueful prayers, and real concern
This stalwart of the digestive tract
Make enzymes: which (and here’s a fact)
Break down the sugars, fats and starches
While pizza through your system marches
Not only this – but hormones, which
Impact your sugars, help you ditch
What you don’t need – and more besides
As you fuel all your great insides.
The enzyme trinity should amaze
(Lipase, Protease, Amylase)
The Lipase works with liver’s bile
To break down fats with guts and style
The Protease to proteins turns
While fending off the yeast and germs
The Amylase the sugar breaks,
To give you energy from your cakes.
The hormones sent into our blood
Are all designed to do us good,
The Insulin we surely need
To balance sugars as we feed.
The Glucagon will tell the liver
If sugar levels are a-quiver,
Gastrin and Amylin complete
This quartet, when we are replete.
The pancreas is sensitive: and when
There is a problem, now and then
It won’t complain or overstate
Unless/until it’s far too late
So diabetes begins (so quiet)
O’er years and years of normal diet
The pancreas never worked? Type One.
(Type 2 in midlife comes along.)
The balanced enzyme/hormone plan
No longer functions as it can,
And everything is up for grabs
As you take tablets, BP, jabs
On any given day you might
Find something isn’t working right
The warnings become more acute
As age creeps on; the more astute
Will start to pray to Pancreas now
At least, find out the why and how
Of how to keep this saint content
Before our saint’s completely bent.
[1] One of the ‘Holy Trinity’ of anatomical railway stations, the others being the Eustonstation Tube and Liverspot Street Station
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