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What You Didn't Know About Carbs Metabolism, Insulin And Diabetes

by — 2014-04-03 in Lymphatic & Endocrine system
We always hear or read about carbs metabolism and insulin and how this is altered in diabetic patients, but do we actually know what is happening? Here, you will be able to understand how carbs metabolism functions and why insulin is so important for it.

Have you ever heard or read about how carbs metabolism, insulin, and how this is alerted in people who are suffering from diabetes. Do we actually know what is happening, though? Metabolism is how your body transfers food and drinks into energy to fuel itself. Carbs metabolism is how your body processes carbohydrates.

Diabetes effects your metabolism and makes it so your body can no longer produce enough insulin. This means that your body can no longer properly store the energy it gets from food.

What exactly is carb metabolism and how does it tie into diabetes?

Metabolism, the energetic system of our body

Metabolism is a very common word that we usually relate to how fast or slow our body is able to process nutrients, specially fats and carbs from the food we eat. I bet you have heard more than once that someone has a “fast” metabolism, and that’s the reason why she or he stays slim. Well, this is not entirely wrong, but if we go a bit deeper, say to a cellular level, metabolism is how our cells transform the nutrients from food into energy. 

In other words, cell metabolism has to do with chemical reactions that convert proteins, carbs and fats into simpler compounds that our cells can use as energy source.

How is this done?

The processes that convert proteins, carbs and fats into energy are different for each one of these nutrients. If any of the processes gets disrupted, it could cause severe damage to our body. 

Several diseases are caused by metabolic alterations. For instance, phenylketonuria is an inherited disease that affects the processing of phenylalanine, a vital amino acid mainly present in meat, chicken, dairy and some legumes. Children suffering from the disease can develop very serious problems, including mental disability. 

Diabetes mellitus also appears as a consequence of such a disruption in the metabolic processing of carbohydrates, causing an abnormal increase in blood sugar or glucose, and leading to life threatening consequences. But before getting into what causes diabetes, we need to know how carbs are metabolized, used and stored by our cells, under normal conditions.

From starches and complex sugars to glucose

The transformation of carbohydrates into simpler compounds starts in the mouth and continues in the small intestine, where carbs, in the form of sugars, are transported into the blood stream. By the end of this journey, all sugars are converted into glucose, which is the main source of energy that our cells use to carry out their functions.

See Also: The One Best Way To Increase Your Metabolism

Glucose functions as fuel for our cells. 

Glucose is stored in the liver, but it can be released back into the bloodstream whenever the cells need it. How does this happen? A signal needs to be sent to the liver in order for it to know when store and when to release glucose, depending on the energetic requirements of our body. For example, after a meal, glucose will be stored in order to have it available for when you are not eating. The ones in charge of delivering this important message are insulin and glucagon, two hormones that work as a team to control the levels of glucose in the blood and cells. 

Insulin And Carbs Metabolism

Insulin is a hormone produced by our pancreas and its main function is the regulation of the levels of glucose present in our blood.

How does insulin work?

In a healthy person, the pancreas releases insulin whenever glucose levels in the bloodstream rise up, situation that occurs after every meal.

Insulin then tells the cells that there is glucose available for either usage or storage.
The liver and muscles store glucose in the form of glycogen, which can be transformed back into glucose and released into the bloodstream to keep glucose levels in the normal range.

When this system doesn't work, glucose metabolism is affected and the general balance of the body is completely altered.

Not enough insulin: Type I diabetes

In patients with type I diabetes, low levels of insulin as a consequence of pancreatic damage or inherited malfunctioning, prevent the cells from taking glucose from the bloodstream.

Because no glucose can enter the cells, they need to use an alternate source of energy to keep functioning. Ketones then come into stage.

Ketones are also produced by the liver and can be used instead of glucose; however, the rise in ketones levels can lead to ketoacidosis, a serious complication that can cause death.

This is why type I diabetics cannot rely on the emergency mechanisms of the body to compensate for the lack of glucose inside the cells, so they need to inject insulin in order to keep the cells fully charged with glucose.

Type I diabetes is considered to be mainly a genetic disease, although there could be environmental causes to it, also. 

Defective insulin: Type II diabetes

Type II diabetes is a whole different story. Even when it also has to do with a disruption in the insulin signaling, it is mainly caused by a reduced effectiveness of this hormone to activate the glucose intake from the blood stream into the cells.

This lack of response from the body to insulin is what is known as insulin resistance.  
Since glucose levels start to increase because there is no insulin response, the body thinks that more insulin needs to be produced by the pancreas and released into the bloodstream. This chronic extra demand on the insulin producing cells of the pancreas, called beta cells, can cause them to wear out.

See Also: Insulin Pump for Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes

At this stage, type II diabetics may also need to inject insulin to make up for the one that can’t be produced due to the lack of healthy pancreatic cells. 
It is hard to determine the exact cause of insulin resistance in diabetes type II. It is actually considered a multifactorial disease, meaning that there are many factors that contribute to its development.  One of this factors is related to obesity and overweight and people's lifestyle in general. 

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