Percocet, or oxycodone, is a narcotic pain reliever that is used to relieve moderate to severe pain, states the Mayo Clinic. The mechanism in which percocet relieves pain is unknown; however, this drug may activate specific receptors in the brain...
Maintaining a mean blood glucose level within a normal range is essential to your continued good health. In addition to facilitating the management of your sugar levels, the monitoring of mean blood glucose also plays an important role in the...
Insulin is a hormone produced by small groupings of cells called the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas. Insulin regulates the amount of sugar, or glucose, in your blood. Diabetics generally suffer from one of the two main forms of diabetes;...
Starchy foods, such as potatoes, bread, rice, pasta and cereal, would provide you with little caloric value were it not for the presence of amylase in your digestive system. Amylase is a digestive protein, or enzyme, which breaks down dietary...
Lipase is a type of pancreatic protein present in the blood. Abnormal levels indicate a problem with the pancreas. Blood tests are utilized in order to measure your child's lipase levels. Lipase testing itself is safe and relatively painless,...
Abdominal pain consistently ranks in the top five reasons for hospital emergency room visits, says the August 2010 edition of "Annals of Emergency Medicine". The list of potential reasons for abdominal pain fills the pages of medical textbooks,...
The pancreas is a gland located in the abdomen behind the stomach. Its primary functions are to aid digestion by producing pancreatic enzymes to help break down food and insulin to stabilize blood sugar levels. These functions are adversely...
When Rockefeller University scientists first introduced leptin to the world in 1994, the thinking was that the newly discovered hormone represented a breakthrough in treating obesity. However, subsequent research showed that excess leptin and...
According to statistics published in 2007, 23.6 million children and adults in the U.S. have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. That's nearly 8 percent of the American population. Diabetes describes a condition in which the...
Vitamin K refers to a group of related vitamins, including the naturally occurring vitamins K-1, or phylloquinone, and vitamin K-2, or menaquinone. Vitamin K was discovered in the early 1930s and for almost 50 years was thought to be only involved...
