stupid question of the day

[Vicsetter]

This is my understanding - feel free to correct anyone

Its a bit like running a bath, the hot water being the glucagon and the cold the insulin.

If you swapped them around (Hot is insulin and cold is glucagon) that would explain T1 diabetes, your immersion heater is broken!

 

[cazscot]

Hi Carol, I am even more confused now! Surely glucagon is as essential as insulin for non-diabetics or they would suffer hypo's aswell? Sorry if I am misunderstanding something obvious!🙂Bev

Sorry Bev, didnt mean to confuse you, I just remember reading it somewhere (been searching through my notes and cant find it)...

Margie, what a fanatastic analogy.

 

[margie]

If you swapped them around (Hot is insulin and cold is glucagon) that would explain T1 diabetes, your immersion heater is broken!

But the glucagon causes an increase in the blood sugar and the insulin causes it to drop.

Before diagnoses with type 1 the cold is turned off so you get too hot

 

[getcarter76]

If you swapped them around (Hot is insulin and cold is glucagon) that would explain T1 diabetes, your immersion heater is broken!

Tee hee Vicsetter

 

[Vicsetter]

Type 1s don't produce insulin (heater is broken so no hot water), just swap hot and cold in your analogy. Of course my low BG could be affecting my water temperature.

 

[randomange]

But the body has receptor cells that tell you if your too low or too high - and normally in a non-diabetic the glucagon and the insulin are 2 seperate hormones and they dont control how each other works because its the brain that determines whether either hormone is released or not surely?

So, if they work as seperate entities - why then does the pancreas not react and send out the glucagon to sort out the hypo? Glucagon doesnt 'swith off' insulin as they dont work together as far as i can tell.Bev

Hi Bev

It's definitely confusing! Although glucagon and insulin don't work together, they both affect the same systems, so, for example, insulin can affect some of the targets of glucagon to prevent it having it's effect and vice versa. A good example is why diabetics take hypos. Normally, glucagon would increase the breakdown of glycogen to glucose in the liver, and the glucose would be released to increase your blood sugar. However, one of the effects of insulin is to stop this breakdown of glycogen to glucose, and so in the event of too much insulin, the glucagon signal is drowned out by the insulin signal, and your liver can't raise your blood sugar.

However, the glucagon signal can eventually become strong enough to cause a release of glucose from the liver - this is one of the reasons you can get a rebound from a hypo.

Does that help any? 🙂

 

[Freddie99]

Only the beta cells in the Islets of Langerhans are destroyed as I believe, those are the ones that produce insulin. The alpha cells that produce glucagon are left comparatively untouched and continue to functionas in a non diabetic. The rest of the pancreas continues to produce the digestive enzymes such as proteases, lipases and amylases which are associated with it. Islets of Langerhans are just one part of a rather complex organ (to give the proper term they are acini, in English that means clusters of cells). Here endeth the lesson.

 

[HelenM]

A few things I found:
In type 1a (autoimmune)
There are normal amounts of alpha cells but their function may become impaired particularly in people who have had type 1 for a long period of time. One study suggested that the alpha cells become desensitised by repeated insulin injections over many years and they then start to behave abnormally. (ie they don't work when they should)
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/studies/joslin_study_pinpoints_role_insulin_glucagon_levels_130778.html

There is one type of type 1b (fulminant), at one time thought only to affect people from an African ancestry but being found in others now. In this type there is a loss of both alpha and beta cells from the beginning. (but both may regenerate as there is no autoimmune attack)

In type 2 there may be an increased number of alpha cells sometimes resulting in too much glucagon being released. This can result in too much glucose being released from the liver. One of the ways Metformin is thought to work is by reducing this overproduction.

One interesting study (with mice) has found that when they killed off almost all the beta cells and then gave the mice insulin, some of the alpha cells changed into beta cells.
(I wonder if this is one reason that some people who have had type 1 for 50 years are found to still have some working beta cells)

 

[Adrienne]

This is what confuses me - why do type 1's have hypo's if the pancreas still produces glucagon? Sorry for being thick!😱Bev

Hiya

The pancreas produces glycogen which talks to the liver which then produces the glucagon from the liver.

Having type 1, the normal route, means that they still have the ability to produce the glycagen to talk to the liver but this can wear out. This is one of the fundamental differences between Jessica and a 'normal' type 1. In 'normal' type 1 when a hypo is going to happen sometimes the process can be slowed down or stopped just by the body using the glycogen to get the liver to produce glucagon. Jessica has the ability to produce glucagon but can't because she has no pancreas to produce the glycagen to trigger the process.

This is why all diabetics, especially type 1's should have and carry a glucagon injection kit with them. The injection kit will not save your life on its own, it is not a sugar substance. It is acting in place of the glycagen in the pancreas and once injected it stimulates the liver into producing the glycagon. This is why the injection kit can only be used once and then the liver has to replenish !!

That is all in layman terms, I'm sure Tom or someone can come up with a much more scientific explanation but for me the layman bit was easier to understand and get my head around.

 

[Northerner]

I think you've got your glucogon and glycogen mixed up there Adrienne, they should be the other way around in your explanation. Glycogen is how the liver stores glucose, glucagon causes a process calle glycogenesis which converts stored glycogen to glucose.

 

[Lizzzie]

Bev, I think maybe it tries to, but glycogen stores are fairly finite and run out quite quickly (presumably being diabetic, we pcik at them more often and they are less likely to be well developed?)

I made this up though.

*later* Ah, I missed an entire page of that thread which a much better explanation which makes ten times more sense.

 

[Adrienne]

I think you've got your glucogon and glycogen mixed up there Adrienne, they should be the other way around in your explanation. Glycogen is how the liver stores glucose, glucagon causes a process calle glycogenesis which converts stored glycogen to glucose.

Whoops yep sorry, other way around !!