What Is Insulin?

Insulin is the name of an important hormone of living system. In humans it is secreted by pancreas and it basically regulates level of blood sugar (glucose). Glucose regulation is very important, because glucose is the main source of energy for human body. Glucose enters in the body through the daily day diets, and a steady level of glucose is required in the blood, throughout the day.

Role of Insulin
As mentioned before, glucose is the prime source of energy for human body, now after a meal when one goes for his work, his body glucose starts utilizing in producing the body energy, so to maintain a steady level of glucose he needs to eat more food. Similarly, when level of the glucose gets increased in the body then that person will be needed to work out, in order to utilize that excess of blood glucose. From above example, it is clear that with food schedule, it is impossible to maintain the steady level of blood glucose. In this case, body hormone Insulin has an important role to play.

Importance of Insulin
In high levels of glucose, Insulin triggers the cells of fat, liver and muscles. Muscle and liver cells work together to combine the glucose and they create a compound called glycogen. In the form of glycogen, body stores the energy. Insulin also acts as body cleaner, because it removes all the by-products of the food by activating the fat cells in order to create fats from excessive fatty acids. After getting activated kidney and liver cells also participate in turning the amino acids to the protein molecules. Moreover, insulin also prevents the kidney and liver cells from generating the glucose from the partially metabolized food materials, because excess of blood glucose can cause severe damage to these body organs.

Glucagon and Insulin
Insulin can be closely related to the hormone Glucagon. Glucagon, is another hormone which is also secreted by pancreas. Glucagon, works when level of blood sugar goes down. This hormone activates the muscle and liver cells, to break down the biomolecule glycogen, which was created by hormone insulin. So, Glucagon and insulin works together in order to complete the cycle of blood sugar regulation.

Diabetes
Insulin is operational in one’s body, without any personal effort of the person. In fact, nobody bothers about the existence of insulin, although, it is one of the most important hormones of human body. Its importance can be learned from the patients of diabetes.

Diabetes is a name of disease, which signifies the problems in production of body insulin. Diabetes can be classified in 2 types. In Type 1 of the diabetes, pancreas stops the production of insulin. On the other hand, in type 2 of the diabetes, body develops resistance against the insulin produced by pancreas. Type 2 of the diabetes can be easily dealt with some medications. But, type 1 of the disease is much more severe problem then type 2. To deal with lack of insulin one needs to have injections of artificial insulin. According to resent studies, lack of the insulin is the chief reason for occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease. So, regulation of insulin level in the body is very important in order to sustain a healthy life.

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