How Insulin Works to Generate Energy

Everybody on the planet relies on insulin, diabetics included but not exclusively, because the function of insulin is to control your body's use of and storage of energy. A problem many people have in trying to find out how insulin works is that the vast majority of references to the hormone online are in connection with diabetes.

However, while diabetes is a condition connected with your immune system, inflammation and insulin levels, the hormone is a very important component of your metabolism, and it can, and should, be discussed without the term 'diabetes' having to be mentioned. The reason for it being so is fully appreciated, but you should keep in mind that insulin is a hormone, and it is there for a purpose - not only to enable you to avoid diabetes.

How Insulin Works

Insulin is a hormone secreted by the pancreas in response to the level of glucose in your blood: the more glucose in your blood then the more insulin is secreted. So why, and what is its purpose? How does insulin work?

Here is a sequence of events that explains how insulin works, and why it is so important to you.

1. You do work or excercise, your blood glucose is used to generate energy through cellular respiration and your blood glucose levels then drop.


2. Your hypothalamus reacts to this and tells your body that:


3. You feel hungry.


4. You eat food.


5. Your digestive system converts the carbohydrates in your meal into glucose.


6. The glucose is absorbed into your bloodstream and you blood glucose levels rise.


7. Your hypothalamus reacts to that by telling your pancreas to create and secrete insulin into your bloodstream.


8. The insulin receptors on your body cells attract the insulin that sticks to these receptors like iron sticks to a magnet.


9. When a cell has insulin sticking to it, other receptors are activated that draw glucose into the mitochondria of the cell.


10. The glucose then undergoes a process known as cellular respiration where it generates energy along with oxygen.


11. back to Step 1.

That basically is what insulin does. Without insulin, your cells cannot generate energy and you feel tired and listless. Your blood becomes glucose-rich, some of which is converted to fatty tissue that is stored in your fat cells, but basically you become very tired and ill.

The parts of your brain that detect the amount of the various controlling factors in your blood, such as insulin and glucose, are the hypothalamus and pituitary gland.

Insulin and Glycogen

Insulin also enables the liver to store excess glucose as glycogen, which is used as an emergency energy store: it is glycogen that fuels the initial stages of anaerobic exercise, for example, but while some would have you believe that to be the only function of insulin, that is not so.

Once your blood glucose levels drop, the production of insulin also drops, and your brain then tells you that you are hungry. Adrenalin and glucocorticoids are among the hormones that control your glucose levels.

Basically, the balance between blood glucose and insulin is based upon the energy your metabolism needs to keep your heart beating, your diaphragm muscle creating the vacuum in your lungs that is breathing, your digestion and many other energy-consuming processes needed to maintain life.

It is also important that you maintain your glycogen reserves, and insulin also controls this process within your liver. So these are the two major reasons for your pancreas secreting the hormone insulin to enable ATP energy generation through the glycolysis and oxidation of glucose in the mitochondria of each cell in your body (known as cellular respiration) and to maintain a standard energy reserve in the form of glycogen.

Without insulin you lose energy, the energy obtained in your blood glucose is converted to fat which is stored within your fat cells, and your metabolism slows down fatally because it cannot generate the energy required by your metabolism - the normal processes of life.

Excessive Insulin

Excessive insulin can cause vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and also promotes lipid oxidation leading to arterial blockage with resultant strokes and heart failure. It also generates obesity because fat cannot be burned off.

With all the above effects of excess or low insulin levels, we have yet to discuss diabetes which is believed to be due to a problem with the immune system, so when you add that to the equation, the importance of maintaining good average levels of glucose in the blood become apparent.

That's how insulin works, and hence the need for a good balanced diet and why fad dietary extremes should be avoided.

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