Blood Sugar Regulation

Blood sugar regulation is performed by an organ of the endocrine system; the pancreas. This small organ secretes two types of hormones to maintain the glucose (sugar) in your bloodstream at normal levels: insulin and glucagon. Thus, they regulate the amount of glucose in your blood, which must range from 80 to 110 milligrams per deciliters (mg/dL) for a healthy person. Above them, you are in a pre-diabetic stage.

Although glucose is an essential fuel for many cells to produce energy (ATP), too much sugar in your tissues is inflammatory and, over the years, can lead to serious damage, especially to your arteries inner walls, which are made up of endothelial cells. Too much sugar also hurts your eye retina and it can also cause ischemia in your toes and feet. To avoid it, the beta cells of pancreas release insulin, which induces the liver cells to convert the excess glucose into glycogen, thus, lowering the sugar to normal levels.

Glycogen is a kind of first fuel reserve that muscles and organs have at their disposal during physical exertion. If you keep eating too much carbs and if you lead a sedentary life, then the pancreas will continue producing insulin and the liver will convert the remainder of excess sugar into triglyceride, which is stored in your adipose cells as fat. Therefore, fat is the second fuel reservoir that the body has in store.

During fasting or famine, the pancreas alpha cells release glucagon, which is a hormone that activates the enzyme lipase in the adipose tissue. Lipase breaks down triglyceride into smaller molecules: glycerol and fatty acids. Then the liver hepatocytes mitochondria convert glycerol into glucose through a metabolic process called gluconeogenesis, also turning fatty acids into ketone bodies, which are high-octane fuel employed by muscle and nerve cell mitochondria to produce ATP.

By Carlos B. Camacho (anthropologist)