Diabetes' sworn enemy could ultimately be a valuable ally

[Northerner]

When people talk about diabetes, they usually also talk about insulin. Diabetes is a disease that affects millions of people around the world; insulin is a hormone that helps control this disease. Now a third term could soon be joining the conversation: glucagon.

Glucagon has long been seen as a hormone whose sole purpose was to counteract insulin's effect. However, Jennifer Estall, a researcher at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) and at Université de Montréal, is challenging this dogma.

In a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), her team unravels an adaptive mechanism involved in controlling insulin action, showing that glucagon plays a crucial part in it and can thus be a protective asset.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190306081722.htm

 

[Robin]

As usual, they’re discovering that the body is far more complicated than they first thought. I’ve often thought, we shouldn’t really go Hypo, because the liver ought to sense blood sugar levels dropping and churn out some glucose, but it seems we need to inject glucagon to produce that effect.

 

[mikeyB]

Well, both of us have had challenges trying to beat the old DP as our livers prepare us for the exertions of the morning. Don’t need glucagon for that. And it works even when normoglycaemic.