What is insulin, insulin resistance and diabetes?
Insulin is a hormone that carries glucose (sugar) from your blood into your cells so that it can be burned for energy. Insulin is produced by the pancreas.
Insulin resistance is a state in which your cells are not responding to insulin appropriately, so the sugar in your blood cannot get into your cells. To compensate, your pancreas pumps out more insulin
to try to get the sugar out of your blood and into your cells. The hyperinsulinimia (high blood insulin) that results is able to maintain normal blood sugar levels and delay the onset of diabetes.
Diabetes is diagnosed when your fasting blood sugar level is >/= 126 mg/dL. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in childhood and occurs when the pancreas stops producing insulin. Insulin injections are required for life. Type 2 diabetes is usually diagnosed in adulthood. It occurs when the cells stop responding to insulin (often due to insulin resistance), and the pancreas is unable to
keep compensating by producing more and more insulin to maintain normal blood sugar levels.
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May 17th 2008 at 4:25 pm
[…] called glucose,which is carried by the blood to cells throughout the body. Cells use the hormone insulin, made in the pancreas, to help them process blood glucose into […]