Blood Glucose Control and Diabetes
Insulin and glucagon push blood glucose back towards its set point after a meal or a long gap without one. Type 1 and type 2 diabetes break the loop at different places, which is why the treatments differ.
What a learner can do afterwards
- Says what the pancreas releases when glucose is high and when it is low, and what the liver does in each case.
- Tells type 1 from type 2 by which part of the loop has failed.
- Reads a glucose against time graph and marks where insulin was acting.
1 · Read
After a meal blood glucose climbs above its set point. The pancreas releases insulin. That release is the high-side answer.
Insulin tells the liver to store glucose as glycogen. Between meals glucose falls, the pancreas releases glucagon, and the liver releases stored glucose back.
In type 1 the pancreas makes little or no insulin. With almost no signal after meals, glucose stays high. The loop breaks at supply.
In type 2 cells answer insulin poorly and supply can also fall short of need. Food and activity affect glucose, and medicines vary from person to person and can include insulin. Care differs because bodies differ.
A missing supply and a poor response look different on paper. Trace A with almost no signal matches missing supply. Trace B with plenty of signal but high glucose matches poor response. One graph alone never proves the cause. Lab measures check it.
Always name both the signal and the responder. Say what the pancreas releases when glucose is high and when it is low, then say what the liver does in each case.
Insulin banks glucose after meals, glucagon withdraws it between them, and each diabetes type breaks a different link.
Original readings written for this topic. Video from Cognito; terms unknown.
2 · Watch
Take it off screen
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.