By Joshua Ng
Introduction
Glucose, also known as blood sugar, is the smallest unit of carbohydrates. It provides energy to all cells, organs, muscles in the human body, and even the brain to perform the metabolic functions needed to sustain life. After you eat, which acts as a stimulus, the carbohydrates that come from the food are broken down into glucose by the small intestines and absorbed into your blood. The rise in blood sugar level will trigger the pancreas to release insulin, a hormone produced by beta cells. It would then travel into the bloodstream and allow the glucose to enter the body cells through insulin receptors. Once inside, the cells convert glucose into energy or store it to use later. This glucose regulation system works as an internal balance as a result of Homeostasis.
Sometimes, the body doesn’t produce enough insulin or doesn’t use it well. This causes a disease called Diabetes. This essay will be focused on Type 1 Diabetes. Type 1 Diabetes is a condition in which your immune system attacks and destroys the beta cells of the pancreas. Without insulin, the glucose wouldn’t be able to enter the body cells and as a result, it builds up in your blood, causing a high level of blood sugar. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and younger people, and some of the symptoms include increased thirst, fatigue, weight loss, frequent urination, etc.
Over time, people with Type 1 diabetes will experience complications in their major organs such as kidneys, heart, blood vessels, eyes, and nerves. The chart below shows the number of deaths caused by Diabetes per a standard population of 100,000 over a 14-year period.
These figures have been steadily decreasing due to an improvement in the treatment for Type 1 Diabetes, which includes medications, insulin injections, and lifestyle changes. This essay will be focused on insulin injection as a treatment and solution to Type 1 diabetes.
Artificial Insulin
Insulin is essential for the control of blood sugar levels in your body. When a person is diagnosed with diabetes, there is no insulin to allow glucose to enter the body cells. This alters and affects the positive and negative feedback loops of glucose homeostasis, resulting in glucose getting trapped in the bloodstream, unable to provide energy for body cells in the human body. This is why patients need to take artificial insulin injections in order for their bodies to continue regulating their blood sugar levels and prevent them from getting too high (hyperglycemia) or too low (hypoglycemia). The chart on the left shows the multistep biochemical process of creating genetically engineered insulin.
Artificial insulin can treat diabetes by replacing the insulin the body doesn't produce. The insulin will continue to regulate your blood sugar levels by entering the bloodstream, allowing the glucose to enter body cells and provide the vital energy they need to allow the body to function, acting as negative feedback. Aside from glucose regulation, artificial insulin also has the ability to store the excess glucose that was broken down after you eat into the liver in the form of glycogen.
When you are not eating or have a long night of sleep, your blood sugar level will decrease, causing the liver to release glycogen to raise the glucose level and keep it at a certain range that is balanced. Eating and sleeping are examples of stimuli that trigger insulin to be released. Over the years, artificial insulin has become more modified and enhanced that it could replace the insulin in the body completely and possess the capability to regulate the glucose level in the body.
Artificial insulin doesn’t come in pill form as the digestive system would break it down before it has a chance to reach the glucose. Insulin is usually injected through a pen or shot, an insulin pump, or inhaled insulin. There are several types of artificial insulin varying in how quickly and how long they can control blood sugar, but the general types are long-, ultralong- or intermediate-acting insulin and rapid- or short-acting insulin. Doctors would usually determine which type of insulin and how much the patient needs to balance the glucose in the body, with factors such as your glucose levels, how much your blood sugar fluctuates throughout the day and your daily lifestyle.
Positive Implications
The use of artificial insulin in particular has decreased the number of deaths caused by diabetes. Before the discovery of insulin in 1921, people with diabetes don’t live for very long as the doctors couldn’t do anything to cure them. Patients with juvenile diabetes (now named Type 1) had lived only 1.4 years on average after diagnosis before 1921, whereas nowadays almost all people with diabetes have a normal life expectancy. Despite saving millions of lives the insulin discovered wasn’t perfect. It caused an allergic reaction in many patients, as the insulin was derived from cattle and pigs.
It was until 1979 when the first-ever synthesized (genetically engineered) “human” insulin was produced. It was almost identical to the insulin in the body and it was significantly more effective than the animal insulin, allowing the patients to live a normal, healthy life again.
The chart below shows the annual death rates from diabetes per 1 million youths aged under 10 and from 10-19. It can be clearly seen that from 1968 the rate of deaths has been slowly decreasing at a steady trend, especially in the 10-19 age group. The under 10 age group managed to drop from 3.7 deaths per 1 million youth in 1968 to 1.3 deaths in 1984, followed by a 1.6 increase from 1984 to 2009. On the other hand, the 10-19 age group managed to maintain a steady drop in the death rates from 2 in 1968 to 0.4 in 2010. It should be noted that the improvements in diets and medications can also be factors that contributed to the decrease in the deaths caused by diabetes. Overall, it can be proved that the invention of artificial insulin can significantly decrease the number of deaths caused by diabetes.
Negative Implications
Insulin helps diabetic people stay healthy and alive however there are various side effects and risks when taking insulin. One of the main risks or side effects is Hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia is a condition when your blood sugar level is too low.
Insulin injections cause the cells in the bloodstream to absorb glucose. When a patient takes too much insulin or dispenses it at the wrong time can cause a drastic drop in the blood sugar level, the cells would be starved for energy, and if it is neglected for a long period of time, the person could experience serious complications in the major organs of the body. This can be prevented by having a strict insulin schedule and following the doctor’s prescriptions.
Conclusion
To conclude, artificial insulin has come to be an excellent solution to Type 1 Diabetes and has saved millions of lives ever since it was first invented. Artificial insulin has prevented diagnosed patients from dying by maintaining their blood sugar level at a regular range, and it also has the ability to allow patients to lead a normal, healthy life again. Although it is true that there are some risks and side effects such as Hypoglycemia, rashes, bumps, and weight gain, overall, the advantages significantly outweigh the disadvantages, so artificial insulin has come to be the best possible treatment for Type 1 diabetes.
Bibliography
Biotechnology - Health and Medicine. (n.d.). Eduhk. https://www.eduhk.hk/biotech/eng/classrm/class_health5.html
Centre for Health Protection, Department of Health - Diabetes Mellitus. (n.d.). Centre for Health Protection. https://www.chp.gov.hk/en/healthtopics/content/25/59.html
Diabetes Death Rates Among Youths Aged ≤19 Years — United States, 1968–2009. (n.d.). CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6143a2.htm
Diabetes treatment: Using insulin to manage blood sugar. (2021, August 7). Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/in-depth/diabetes-treatment/art-20044084
Fletcher, J. (2020, June 18). What are the side effects of insulin therapy? Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323387#Hypoglycemia-when-taking-insulin
Gentile. (2014, May 27). Type 1 Diabetes. Endocrineweb. https://www.endocrineweb.com/conditions/type-1-diabetes/managing-type-1-diabetes
The History of a Wonderful Thing We Call Insulin | ADA. (n.d.). Diabetes. https://www.diabetes.org/blog/history-wonderful-thing-we-call-insulin
How insulin is made - material, manufacture, history, used, parts, components, structure, steps, product. (n.d.). Madehow. http://www.madehow.com/Volume-7/Insulin.html
Hypoglycemia - Symptoms and causes. (2022, May 4). Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hypoglycemia/symptoms-causes/syc-20373685
Pointer, K. (2017, March 24). Everything You Need to Know About Glucose. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/glucose
The Types of Insulin Used to Treat Diabetes. (2004, February 4). WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/diabetes-types-insulin
Comments