My understanding is that diabetics have a pancreas that does not produce insulin or the body has stopped reacting to insulin, which mean they can get really high blood sugar because nothing metabolizes is.
But why does that cause diabetic people to also get low blood sugar more often than non-diabetics? If I eat a cake, my body produces a bunch of insulin to metabolize, then I go work out for an hour, my blood sugar won’t be as low as a diabetic who did the same.
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Hi there! So, inside your body, there’s a special sugar called “glucose” that gives you energy to do things like run, play, and think.
When you eat food, your body breaks it down into glucose, which then goes into your bloodstream and travels to all the different parts of your body that need it.
For non-diabetics, their bodies are really good at keeping their blood sugar levels from going too low.
One way this happens is that their body releases a hormone called “insulin” which helps move the glucose from the bloodstream into the cells where it’s needed.
Another way is that when their blood sugar levels start to get too low, their body can quickly make more glucose from stored energy in the liver and muscles.
So, non-diabetics don’t really have to worry too much about keeping their blood sugar from going low because their body does it automatically for them!
Diabetics get low blood sugar because they have to manually maintain their blood sugar by using insulin injections. And that is really hard to do.
So if they give themselves just a little too much insulin they get low blood sugar.
For a non-diabetic their body is working just fine and is able to maintain that balance really well on its own.
Our body, when it’s working properly is just down right amazing at maintaining homeostasis.
Because they are manually adding insulin. The body has a control system set up to control blood sugar levels. In diabetics this is broken and then every so often have to add a large amount of insulin. The body doesn’t just dump a ton of insulin, it does so gradually as needed.
The automatic insulin pumps can help reducing the incidents of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) by providing a more measured control of insulin delivery.
Hi there! So, inside your body, there’s a special sugar called “glucose” that gives you energy to do things like run, play, and think.
When you eat food, your body breaks it down into glucose, which then goes into your bloodstream and travels to all the different parts of your body that need it.
For non-diabetics, their bodies are really good at keeping their blood sugar levels from going too low.
One way this happens is that their body releases a hormone called “insulin” which helps move the glucose from the bloodstream into the cells where it’s needed.
Another way is that when their blood sugar levels start to get too low, their body can quickly make more glucose from stored energy in the liver and muscles.
So, non-diabetics don’t really have to worry too much about keeping their blood sugar from going low because their body does it automatically for them!
Diabetics get low blood sugar because they have to manually maintain their blood sugar by using insulin injections. And that is really hard to do.
So if they give themselves just a little too much insulin they get low blood sugar.
For a non-diabetic their body is working just fine and is able to maintain that balance really well on its own.
Our body, when it’s working properly is just down right amazing at maintaining homeostasis.
Hi there! So, inside your body, there’s a special sugar called “glucose” that gives you energy to do things like run, play, and think.
When you eat food, your body breaks it down into glucose, which then goes into your bloodstream and travels to all the different parts of your body that need it.
For non-diabetics, their bodies are really good at keeping their blood sugar levels from going too low.
One way this happens is that their body releases a hormone called “insulin” which helps move the glucose from the bloodstream into the cells where it’s needed.
Another way is that when their blood sugar levels start to get too low, their body can quickly make more glucose from stored energy in the liver and muscles.
So, non-diabetics don’t really have to worry too much about keeping their blood sugar from going low because their body does it automatically for them!
Diabetics get low blood sugar because they have to manually maintain their blood sugar by using insulin injections. And that is really hard to do.
So if they give themselves just a little too much insulin they get low blood sugar.
For a non-diabetic their body is working just fine and is able to maintain that balance really well on its own.
Our body, when it’s working properly is just down right amazing at maintaining homeostasis.
Because they are manually adding insulin. The body has a control system set up to control blood sugar levels. In diabetics this is broken and then every so often have to add a large amount of insulin. The body doesn’t just dump a ton of insulin, it does so gradually as needed.
The automatic insulin pumps can help reducing the incidents of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) by providing a more measured control of insulin delivery.
Because they are manually adding insulin. The body has a control system set up to control blood sugar levels. In diabetics this is broken and then every so often have to add a large amount of insulin. The body doesn’t just dump a ton of insulin, it does so gradually as needed.
The automatic insulin pumps can help reducing the incidents of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) by providing a more measured control of insulin delivery.
> ELI5: How do non-diabetics keep their blood sugar from going low?
To better understand that we’ll have to understand how the body handles energy.
When you eat something your body starts a process to break it down into energy. It cycles around the blood stream for a bit getting used by the organs as needed and any excess gets put into storage.
When a person does something they use up their immediate reserve, mostly just the nutrients currently cycling in the blood stream. This process is faster than the body can break down food, or maybe it has no food to break down in the first place. So the body starts breaking down the stored energy as well.
Insulin is a chemical required by the body to move this energy – aka sugar – into the muscles, organs, and fat (storage). So high insulin should mean low amounts of sugar in the blood because it’s quickly being moved into other spaces. And low insulin should mean high amounts of sugar in the blood because it’s stuck in there.
If you’re with me so far, you already have your answer. __Everyone’s bodies__ tries to keep their blood sugar from going low by pulling it out of the food or storage as needed.
But for more information. Diabetics have problems with their bodies producing insulin. Because of this they have to manually take a supplement amount, often blindly guessing at just how much they really need.
As a result, the excessive insulin demands the body to dump sugar into cells as fast as it can, dropping the amount of sugar in the blood. And other organs, like the brain, may not receive enough due to the body picking to much of it up. Which means those organs stop operating like they should.
This also happens the other way. Not enough insulin makes the sugar sit in the blood stream instead of entering the organs it needs to. Since the body can’t move into the cells to supply sugar for energy, the body thinks it needs to start breaking storage down. – Producing another source of energy collectively called ketones which are highly acidic. – but that’s not actually what the body needs right now. So it just creates more problems.
So like Goldielocks, we need just the right amount of insulin (and sugar) in our system to function. Too hot or to cold is just a different kind of problem.
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