Slow poison: Alcohol harms not just your liver, but pancreas too | Health - Hindustan Times
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Slow poison: Alcohol harms not just your liver, but pancreas too

IANS | By, New York
May 13, 2016 07:36 PM IST

Another reason for you to not drink too much: regular drinking weakens pancreas’ ability to absorb vitamin C, making you weak and vulnerable to a host of diseases, warn researchers.

Another reason for you to not drink too much: regular drinking weakens pancreas’ ability to absorb vitamin C, making you weak and vulnerable to a host of diseases, warn researchers.

Regular drinking weakens pancreas’ ability to absorb vitamin C, making you weak and vulnerable to a host of diseases, warn researchers.(Istock)
Regular drinking weakens pancreas’ ability to absorb vitamin C, making you weak and vulnerable to a host of diseases, warn researchers.(Istock)

The pancreas produces the enzymes used to digest food and the hormones, such as insulin, that are needed to store energy from food.

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Pancreatic diseases and damage to the pancreas can lead to digestive problems, malnutrition and diabetes.

Reducing the levels of vitamin C and other essential micronutrients will interfere with normal cellular activities in the pancreas, said lead researcher Hamid Said from the University of California.

Read: Consuming processed meat, alcohol ups the risk of stomach cancer

“This may sensitize the pancreas to a secondary insult, predisposing it to the development of pancreatitis and other pancreatic diseases,” Said explained.

The findings appeared in the American Journal of Physiology.

To function properly, pancreatic cells require a number of vitamins, which they take from the blood stream.

In this study, the research team investigated whether alcohol exposure interfered with the pancreas’s absorption of vitamin C.

Read: On a high: It’s not your fault, alcohol’s smell makes it irresistible

The research team first identified the protein called sodium-dependent vitamin C transporter 2 (SVCT-2) as the main protein responsible for transporting vitamin C into pancreatic cells.

Next, the researchers exposed mouse pancreatic cells to alcohol levels similar to the blood alcohol concentration of chronic alcoholics.

The researchers also fed mice a diet in which alcohol made up 25 percent of the total calories consumed.

They found that both pancreatic cells directly exposed to alcohol and pancreatic cells from alcohol-fed mice had lower numbers of SVCT-2, blocking the cells’ absorption of vitamin C.

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