Insulin, Blood Sugar, and Type 2 Diabetes 

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Insulin is a key player in developing type 2 diabetes. This vital hormone—you can’t survive without it—regulates blood sugar (glucose) in the body, a very complicated process. Here are the high points: 

• The food you eat is broken down into blood sugar. 

• Blood sugar enters your bloodstream, which signals the pancreas to release insulin. 

• Insulin helps blood sugar enter the body’s cells so it can be used for energy. 

• Insulin also signals the liver to store blood sugar for later use. 

• Blood sugar enters cells, and levels in the bloodstream decrease, signaling insulin to decrease too. 

• Lower insulin levels alert the liver to release stored blood sugar so energy is always available, even if you haven’t eaten for a while. 

 

That’s when everything works smoothly. But this finely tuned system can quickly get out of whack, as follows: 

• A lot of blood sugar enters the bloodstream. 

• The pancreas pumps out more insulin to get blood sugar into cells. 

• Over time, cells stop responding to all that insulin—they’ve become insulin resistant. 

• The pancreas keeps making more insulin to try to make cells respond. 

• Eventually, the pancreas can’t keep up, and blood sugar keeps rising. 

 

Lots of blood sugar in the bloodstream is very damaging to the body and needs to be moved into cells as soon as possible. There’s lots of insulin, too, telling the liver and muscles to store blood sugar. When they’re full, the liver sends the excess blood sugar to fat cells to be stored as body fat. Yep, weight gain. And what’s more serious, the stage is set for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes.