What is insulin and why is it important?

When we eat food, the carbohydrates (sugars) that we eat are broken down in our digestive system to produce glucose. This glucose has an important role to play in our health, as it is required to provide the energy our cells need to live and function.

Glucose levels in the blood

If we don’t have enough glucose entering our cells we are at risk from harmful conditions like diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) which can be life-threatening as the cells are starving even if blood glucose concentrations are high. On the other hand, often we eat too much sugar and have too much glucose in our blood.

This is bad news for us, because too much glucose damages our cells and organs, causing them to not work so well. Diabetes is a disease characterised by high blood glucose levels (hyperglycaemia). So, it is really important that our bodies are able to control the amount of glucose in our blood.

Controlling glucose levels

Our bodies control the amount of glucose in our blood by using two teams of hormones.

Insulin

Hormone teams acting as messengers

• Insulin @iloveinsulin has a social media account and it sends a message to its follower the liver @theliver …

• Glucagon @ihateinsulin has a social media account and it sends a message to its follower the liver @theliver …

• The liver @theliver has a social media account and it sends messages to its followers Insulin @iloveinsulin and Glucagon @ihateinsulin …

These teams act quickly so that we can deal with rapidly changing levels of glucose, such as after a meal.

Why is glucose control important?

The primary diabetes outcome is glycaemic control, as measured by a blood test (glycosylated haemoglobin or HbA1c) that indicates average plasma glucose for the previous 2-3 months.

Poor glycaemic control has been related to short-term consequences such as hypoglycaemia and diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), as well as serious health consequences later in life such as limb amputation, retinopathy, and renal disease.

Hyperglycaemia means high blood glucose levels. These are normally defined as those which are persistently above 11.1mmol/L. (200mg/dl). Hypoglycaemia is where blood glucose levels are under 4mmol/L. (72mg/dl).

Completion of recommended self-care tasks is considered critical to glycaemic control, with the primary tasks which help to maintain glycaemic control, such as monitoring blood glucose levels, injecting insulin, and dosing insulin according to meter results or other factors, needing to be carried out several times per day, often around mealtimes in varied contexts and locations.