Pancreatic secretory response to intestinal stimulants: a review

In humans and many laboratory animals, protein digestion products such as peptides and amino acids and fat digestion products such as fatty acids and monoglycerides are potent intestinal stimulants of pancreatic enzyme secretion. The pancreatic enzyme response to these intestinal stimulants is related to the perfused load (amount per unit time) rather than to concentration. Both neural and hormonal pathways mediate the enzyme response to these intestinal stimulants. Enteropancreatic, cholinergic, vago-vagal reflexes are probably the most important mediators of the enzyme response to low loads of amino acids and fatty acids; hormones, such as cholecystokinin, seem to be the major mediators of the response to high loads of amino acids and fatty acids. Under physiological conditions it is probably the interplay of neural and hormonal mechanisms which regulates the pancreatic response to these stimulants. Gastric acid is the major regulator of postprandial pancreatic bicarbonate secretion. Secretion released by HCl is probably the most important physiological hormonal mediator of postprandial pancreatic bicarbonate secretion; its effect being potentiated by extrinsic (vagal) and intrinsic (intrapancreatic) cholinergic nerves and release of other hormones, such as cholecystokinin.