Chronic pancreatitis. Light micrograph (LM). Chronic pancreatitis is a condition where the pancreas has become permanently damaged from inflammation and stops working properly. Chronic pancreatitis can affect people of any age, but it usually develops between the ages of 30 and 40 as a result of heavy drinking over many years. It's more common in men. Chronic pancreatitis may sometimes be severe enough even to lead to malabsorption from loss of the acinar parenchyma or to diabetes from loss of islets of Langerhans. In chronic pancreatitis the pancreatic parenchyma has been replaced by pink collagenous connective tissue. About all that remains are islets of Langerhans. Magnification: x 100 when printed at 10 centimetres high.