Why Is Insulin Important for Diabetics?

15 Mar Why Is Insulin Important for Diabetics?

Where does insulin come from?

Artificial insulin, like Saxenda, comes from a laboratory where it is manufactured to be a replacement hormone. Diabetes, whether type 1 or type 2, is an illness characterized by the body not being able to process insulin because the liver puts out glucose, leading to a rise in blood sugar. Insulin helps fix metabolism that gets altered when glucose starts to rise without adequate insulin being produced by the pancreas. The less insulin the body produces, the more glucose starts to rise. Insulin also controls how fat is processed in the body controls how much glucose the liver puts out to help regulate metabolism.

What causes diabetes?

Diabetes is caused by damage to pancreatic islets cells. Once insulin-making cells die, there is no other alternative but to switch to insulin from a bottle. Insulin normally is a bodily product designed to take glucose from the blood. Without insulin, blood sugar rises. Blood sugar in people whose pancreas works should be measured at the level of 70-90. Anything below 70 is hypoglycemia, which is the reverse problem, because the pancreas creates too much insulin than is needed. This results in constant low blood sugar although things can revert to type 1 diabetes.

What happens when the body does not make enough insulin?

Lack of insulin leads to symptoms like excessive urination and thirst among others. People with type 1 diabetes seem to need to eat a lot but cannot gain weight because, mysteriously, they start to get thinner and thinner without an obvious source of the situation, unless a glucose tolerance test is administered in order to diagnose type 1 diabetes and if a person is over 65, the diagnosis reverts to type 2 diabetes. Neither form of diabetes is easy to manage, but type 2 requires the use of pills that help the pancreas produce insulin.

What role does the liver play in diabetes?

The liver also puts out ketones, which result from prolonged exposure to high blood sugar with limited insulin. Ketones spill into the urine with high blood sugar. Diabetics of all kinds use a ketone strip, a device that measures the amount of ketones present in urine. If it turns bright purple, that means take insulin or go to a hospital. Just because insulin is manufactured in a laboratory does not mean it is bad for a diabetic of any kind to take. It is designed to be close to the insulin produced by the physical body because it is manufactured to be uniform. The bottom line is that insulin works. Using it keeps people with diabetes alive indefinitely and can prolong a lifespan that would otherwise be cut short by lack of insulin.