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Why Your Body Can't Function Without Insulin

By: Alice Saracho

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Few of us realize just how important Insulin is to us. Insulin is a hormone whose main function is to control and regulate the levels of glucose in your blood. Without it, the levels of blood sugar build in the body to such dangerously high levels that it begins to negatively impact the functionality of some of the body's major organs.

Normally, after a meal or snack, the digestive system will break down the carbohydrates that you have eaten into glucose. The glucose, along with other nutrients, flows into the blood stream. In a person without diabetes, the glucose will trigger the pancreas to secrete insulin. The insulin floods into the blood stream where it acts as a security guard allowing the glucose entry into the various cells of the body where it provides the cells with sustenance and energy. The energy will either be used immediately by the cells or stored for future use as glycogen (i.e. stored glucose). The excess glucose or stored glycogen will remain in the body until needed where it will then be broken down into glucose to be used by your body.

However, In a diabetic, the pancreas is either not able to release insulin at all or it is incapable of secreting enough to handle the amount of glucose in the bloodstream. Without the insulin, or security guard, the glucose is refused entry into the body's cells. Unable to use the glucose, the body has not option other than to treat it as waste and excrete it from the body in the form of urine. The result is that the body's cells eventually starve and the person experiences weight loss, hunger, and thirst. Eventually, without nourishment, the person will exhibit nerve and cardiovascular damage as major systems of the body begin to shut down and fail. Without intervention, the person dies.

In the case of diabetics where the body's glucose management has gone wrong, patients will have to get the insulin from elsewhere. Doctors will attempt to mimic insulin's role in the body by artificially introducing it into the body. Today's doctors do this in one of three ways - by injections via syringe, by means of an insulin pump, or via the more recent insulin jet injector. The insulin jet injector is a high-pressure device that releases a stream of insulin under high pressure through the gaps between the body's skin cells.

Fortunately, for many people that fear injections, many forms of oral diabetes medications are being developed. With these, a person can control his or her blood glucose levels easily without injections. Until recently, the problem with oral forms of insulin was that the body's stomach acids would break them down and not enough of the insulin would actually make it into the bloodstream. One company that seems to have made a breakthrough, however, is Generex, a biotech company that produces an oral insulin spray and shows promising results.

Currently, there are over twenty types of insulin in the market. They vary in how long it takes before they start to work, how long they last in the body, and when they are most active in the bloodstream. The main goal of your doctor is to mimic as closely as possible the effects of natural insulin in your body. To that end, the type that you take will depend on the doctor's personal preference as well as his evaluation of your blood sugar levels and your lifestyle.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Alice Saracho writes about nutrition and news related to diabetes such as type two diabetes diet and sugar diabetic diet. Please visit her website for more articles.

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