Describe The Characteristics Of The Hormone Insulin

The hormone insulin, made inside the pancreas with the help of beta cells, is released with each meal, to help the body store the blood glucose it gets from food (1). Your blood glucose level is an important level to shows how much sugar a person's body has in their blood, which in effect comes from the food that we eat. The insulin normally targets the liver because it’s the organ that removes glucose from the body turning it into glycogen.(2) There are many different types of insulin based off of the amounts of time you need it to react in your body to lower the blood glucose levels. For example: rapid-acting, short-acting, long-acting, and intermediate-acting are all available types of insulin(1) The way that they tell these apart is through insulin’s characteristics. The first characteristic includes the insulin’s onset, which is the amount of time before insulin reaches the bloodstream and starts lowering blood-glucose levels. If they need the insulin to reach the body right away, a higher amount of onset would be incorporated into the hormone; which would make a rapid-acting insulin. The second characteristic is peak time, which …show more content…
Regulating how the body uses and stores glucose and fat, many of the body’s cells rely on insulin to take glucose from the blood for energy. (3) However, sugar can’t directly go into our cells. thus causing a rise in blood glucose levels when there is a consumption of food. Because of the increasing levels of glucose, the pancreas’ beta cells are signaled to release insulin into the body’s bloodstream to which they then attach and absorb the sugar. “Insulin is often described as a “key,” which unlocks the cell to allow sugar to enter the cell and be used for energy.” (4) When the beta cells absorb the glucose, it serves as their main energy source or can be converted into fat for later