How is insulin related to blood sugar?

In two words: inversely proportional. Picture insulin and blood sugar like two children on a teeter-totter on a playground. By moving forward or backwards on the balance beam, the two children can both hover above the ground, even if they don’t weigh the same.

Likewise, in your body, if the blood sugar goes up, the body releases insulin from the pancreas. Insulin moves sugar from the blood where it really does very little good, into your cells, which all use sugar for food. When blood sugar drops the body stops releasing insulin. If the blood sugar drops too much, the liver will release some sugar to balance things out.

If you take too much of some diabetes meds, like insulin or a class of drugs called the sulfonylureas, your blood sugar can go very much too low, more than the liver can handle. A low blood sugar can be life threatening, and is treated simply by adding sugar to the system to “soak up” the extra insulin.

If you have a low blood sugar, which is called hypoglycemia, drinking half a regular soda, or eating several hard candies can give you enough sugar to restore balance.

Now, let’s go play on the merry-go-round instead….

The body works almost like a thermostat. When there is too much glucose in the blood, insulin is released and reduces the amount of glucose in the blood. Then, when glucose levels drop, insulin is no longer secreted. The body balances the amount of insulin and glucose to keep glucose at a fairly even level throughout the day. It keeps a little bit of insulin ready to go to work at a moment’s notice. For meals, it releases the right amount of extra insulin in time to clear glucose from the blood before the glucose levels climb too high.