The gastrointestinal endocrine cells are essential for life. They regulate the gastrointestinal motility, secretion, visceral sensitivity, absorption, local immune defense, cell proliferation and appetite. These cells act as sensory cells with specialized microvilli that project into the lumen that sense the gut contents (mostly nutrients and/or bacteria byproducts), and respond to luminal stim...

Specialized endocrine cells secrete a variety of peptide hormones all along the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, making it one of the largest endocrine organs in the body. Nutrients and developmental and neural cues trigger the secretion of gastrointestinal (GI) hormones from specialized endocrine cells along the GI tract. These hormones act in target tissues to facilitate digestion and regulate en...

Considerable advances have been made in the understanding of the physiology of gut hormones. Thus, knowledge of the mechanisms of release and of the actions of many of the hormones is rapidly expanding. The known clinical importance of gut hormones is at present confined only to the excess production of gastrin, VIP, and pancreatic glucagon by endocrine tumours. The role of these three and the ...