Insulin-What is it ?
Insulin- https://healthuseful.com/insulin/ Insulin is a hormone made by pancreas that controls the amount of blood sugar .Insulin is a hormone that is secreted by the beta cells of the pancreas. It helps to regulate blood sugar levels and it has been found to effectively treat diabetes. Insulin is a hormone. It is mainly produced in the body by the islets of Langerhans.
Islets of Langerhans are a group of cells in the pancreas -they produce insulin. They not only do the production of insulin but also decide how much amount should be produced. The amount produced depends on the blood glucose levels. If the amount of blood glucose is increased then the amount of insulin produced is also increased.
Pancreas is endocrine gland. It secretes insulin directly into blood. This is in contrast to other glands that are exocrine-like salivary glands which have ducts.
As endocrine glands do not have ducts their secretion is directly added to blood.
Introduction to hormones –
Hormones are chemo messengers that influence the target organs or cells. Hormones do the work of giving specific instructions to cells due to which the body cells can act in a specific way. Similarly insulin helps to transfer glucose from blood into cells and so the cells get energy .Thus it helps the cells to utilize glucose.
Indirectly insulin is required by humans to remain alive. If the levels of insulin are less (Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus )/IDDM or if the cells are less responsive to insulin (Non -insulin dependent diabetes mellitus ) then the levels of glucose in blood will increase.
In IDDM there is malfunctioning of system due to which the immune system attacks the islets of Langerhans so that insulin production is affected and it becomes necessary to administer insulin to the individual .
For further details of IDDM and NIDDM, Please go through our articles on types of diabetes, symptoms of diabetes in healthuseful.com
https://healthuseful.com/ is the link for this website .
Insulin is given to those diabetes patients who do not respond to oral hypoglycemic agents .
The type of insulin that should be given to diabetes patient by MD Medicine doctor is decided by the following factors –
The time of onset of action after insulin is given
The time required to achieve the peak effect of action
The duration till when the action of insulin will persist(the time interval till when the hypoglycemic action of insulin will last)
The route of administration of insulin
- Subcutaneous
- Intravenous
- Nasal spray
The most common route for administering insulin which is preferred all over the world is by subcutaneous method. This is easy method. Patient can do it himself and there is no need every time to visit doctor ‘s clinic.
Rapid acting insulin -This type of insulin is absorbed very fast into blood from the subcutaneous fat. So it is the insulin of choice if we have to correct hyperglycemia in a very short duration.
In this type we have rapid acting insulin analogs. This takes on average 5-15 minutes to have effect. It lasts for duration of 4 hrs.
Regular human insulin -For this the time of onset of action is 30 minutes to one hr. The duration of action is 8 hrs.
Intermediate acting insulin. -In this type the time for onset of action is slow but it’s effects last for a longer time. So it’ll is always in a better position to control the blood sugar overnight or in between meals.
Examples of intermediate acting insulin are-
NPH human insulin -For this onset of action is 1-2 hrs. and the peak level is achieved in 4-6 hrs. In some Casi duration of action is 12 hrs.
Premixed insulin-This is a mixture of rapid acting insulin and intermediate acting insulin.
Long acting insulin -This is slow reach blood stream .It has a stabilizing effect on blood sugar and it lasts through out the day. Time of onset of action of insulin is 1.5-2 hrs. .
For actual treatment a diabetic patient should consult a qualified and experienced MD General Medicine doctor. Our website doesn’t mention the dose of medicines as it has been found that some people make diagnosis and treatment just by going to google and catastrophic consequences result. So the treatment should be taken only after taking consultation with qualified and experienced MD Medicine doctor.
