Insulin in the Human Body

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What is insulin?

To do the tasks, the body needs energy and sugar can be considered a good source of energy to be obtained from inside. As a matter of fact, sugar cannot be directly reached to most of your cells. Thus, there are cells emitted from the pancreas, which will release the sugar in the human body which is termed as insulin.

Insulin is a hormone that is secreted by the pancreas that is responsible for the regulation of blood glucose cells. It even helps the blood sugar level gets too high or too low.

Why is insulin important to the human body?

When a person intakes food, it is passed through the stomach and when the food passes through the digestive tract, carbohydrate is broken to glucose. Once glucose reaches the bloodstream via the small intestine, the insulin generated will absorb the glucose cells and use them for energy. Thus, when there is a weak system, glucose cells can be fetched as a source of energy.

Also, there may be too much glucose cells and the excess amount can also be dangerous. In such situations, insulin signals the body to store the excess in the liver and will only be released when the sugar level decreases and the body needs energy in the form of cells.

Types of insulin

Diabetes is a condition occurring in a patient when there is an imbalance of sugar level in the body. However, medical science has a classification for diabetes which can be pictured as:-

Type 1 diabetes: – when the pancreas can no longer make insulin or insufficient insulin that will regulate blood glucose cells. When glucose isn’t available for the energy, the patient is to be injected insulin to compensate for a balanced functioning

Type 2 diabetes: – in this kind of situation, the pancreas makes insulin but the human body doesn’t respond in an expected fashion to it. Thus, to manage the sugar level in the body, the patient needs to take insulin injections to manage the glucose level.

A patient that is to be injected insulin will have an option to choose from over 4 types of insulin and depending upon his condition studied by the practitioner. These are classified based on the time that these injections take to reach the expected areas.

Rapid-acting insulin – reaches the bloodstream in 10-30 minutes and is effective for 3-5 hours.
Short-acting – reaches the bloodstream in 30 minutes- 1 hour and is effective up-to to 6 hours
Intermediate-acting – reaches the bloodstream in 2-4 hours and is effective up to 12 hours
Long-acting – reaches the bloodstream in several hours and is effective up-to to 24 hours

Insulin has characteristics like below:-

Onset- the time before which the insulin reaches the bloodstream
Peak-time- the time during which the insulin is showing maximum effectiveness to the body
Duration- the time for which the insulin is effective, that is how long the insulin can cover up the work.

Depending upon the condition of the patient, the doctors suggest them the type and it is to be injected in various options

The insulin can be delivered to the body via injector pen, needle or an insulin pump.

Toujeo is long-acting insulin that is used to control the sugar level in the body.

Insulin to treat disease

As mentioned above, there are different types of insulin available and according to the doctor’s guidance; the patient has to inject insulin to his/her body which is as follows

For Type-1 diabetes
Rapid-acting insulin
NovoLog, FlexPen, Fiasp
Apidra
Humalog

Short-acting
Novolin and Humulin

Intermediate-acting
Humulin N, Novolin N

Long-acting
Tresiba
Levemir
Lantus
Toujeo

For Type-2 diabetes

Precose
Glyset

In a nutshell

Insulin is a hormone that is secreted in the pancreas. It signals the body to use the glucose cells to obtain energy from the glucose cells. If the sugar level increases, the liver stores the excess amount to be used only when there is a low sugar level.

If the pancreas is unable to secrete glucose or body isn’t functioning well, then a patient suffers diabetes in which case the external insulin is to be applied depending upon types and requirements.

You've read Insulin in the Human Body, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you've enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.