Beware of acute pancreatitis during the Chinese New Year

  Chinese New Year is a traditional festival in China, and a good time for family reunion. In the joy and festivity, eating and drinking at the same time, we must pay attention to prevent the occurrence of “holiday diseases”. Acute pancreatitis is a more common and serious consequences of the “holiday disease”, overeating, alcohol abuse and stress fatigue are the three major causes of acute pancreatitis.  The pancreas is the largest digestive gland in the body, located deep in the epigastrium, in addition to secrete insulin to regulate blood sugar, but also secrete pancreatic fluid containing a large number of digestive enzymes (such as protease, lipase, amylase, etc.), through the pancreatic duct into the duodenum. The pancreatic duct and bile duct often merge into a Y-shaped “common channel” before entering the intestine, and the channel is surrounded by a layer of “sphincter” constituting the duodenal papilla, where bile can flow back into the pancreas and cause acute pancreatitis if obstructed.  After eating a lot of greasy food, it can reflexively cause an increase in pancreatic secretion, resulting in an increase in pressure in the pancreatic duct. Alcoholism plays a role in stimulating the rapid secretion of pancreatic juice and pancreatic enzymes, and can cause spasmodic contraction of the “sphincter” and narrowing or even closing of the “common channel”, resulting in obstruction of the pancreatic duct, poor excretion of pancreatic juice, and further increase in pressure in the pancreatic duct. The bile and pancreatic juice cannot reach the duodenum smoothly and activate pancreatic enzymes inside the pancreas, which is as serious as explosives being detonated in an arsenal. This “detonated” pancreatic enzymes, indiscriminately, digest and decompose their own pancreatic tissue as if they were eating meat or fish, causing congestion and edema in the pancreatic tissue, and in severe cases, even ulceration, bleeding and necrosis, leading to biliopancreatic reflux acute pancreatitis. In addition, people suffering from gallstones will cause strong contraction of the gallbladder after eating high-fat food, and small stones will be squeezed into the bile ducts and may be embedded in the “common channel”, causing the stagnation of biliopancreatic fluid and causing biliogenic acute pancreatitis.  Acute pancreatitis is divided into two types, the milder type is edema, sudden onset of severe pain in the middle of the upper abdomen or left side of the abdomen, paroxysmal aggravation, and radiation to both sides of the waist, may be accompanied by fever, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms. In severe cases, the hemorrhagic necrotic type, on the basis of the above edema type, further development, deterioration, jaundice, shock and coma, serious cases are life-threatening, the death rate is up to 30% ~ 50%. Therefore, during the Spring Festival should actively prevent the occurrence of acute pancreatitis, avoid overeating, avoid eating too much high-fat, high-protein food, do not drink, pay attention to the combination of work and rest, entertainment film and television should be restrained, avoid overeating after a long period of hunger. Especially patients suffering from cholelithiasis, biliary ascariasis, hyperlipidemia should control their diet and actively treat the above diseases.  Acute pancreatitis does not occur immediately at the dinner table, but often occurs the night after the banquet or the next day. If there is persistent distension and pain in the upper abdomen during the holiday season, you should go to the hospital promptly to check blood and urine amylase profiles and, if necessary, ultrasound and CT, which are extremely useful for diagnosing acute pancreatitis. Clinically, about 90% of acute pancreatitis can be relieved by general symptomatic treatment such as fasting, water fasting and rehydration, and only 10% of patients may evolve into severe acute pancreatitis.