Insulin and Glucose Control (Nursing)

00:01 Hi.

00:02 Welcome to our video on medications for diabetes.

00:05 We're going to get into insulin and glucose control in your body.

00:10 Don't you wish you could smell how good this looks? First, I want to talk about what response does food, especially something as delicious as this pizza, trigger in my body? So what happens when you and your friends go out for a slice of pie? Well, first up, once you start eating that delicious pizza, your blood glucose is going to start to rise.

00:33 After any carbohydrate-rich meal, your blood glucose or blood sugar will start to rise.

00:39 Well, then, beta cells in your pancreas are stimulated to release insulin into the bloodstream.

00:44 So, I started eating that sweet pizza, my blood glucose started going up.

00:50 When the blood glucose rises, then the beta cells in my pancreas are stimulated to -- squirt out insulin into the bloodstream.

00:58 That makes it an endocrine gland.

01:00 Now the body will take up the glucose from the blood stream into the cells.

01:04 As long as everything's working the way it should, I eat the food, blood sugar rises, that stimulates the beta cells in my pancreas to secrete insulin.

01:15 Insulin is a hormone that helps my body take up the glucose from the bloodstream into the cells of my body.

01:23 Then the blood glucose levels will return to normal and it stays about 90-100, and the stimulus for insulin diminishes.

01:31 Okay, so let's walk through those steps again.

01:34 You're really hungry.

01:35 Your blood sugar has dropped, right? And your body's way is telling you, "You need to eat.” You choose pizza.

01:41 You eat it.

01:42 Your blood glucose rises.

01:45 That will stimulate which organ in your body to produce or secrete insulin? Right.

01:52 Your pancreas.

01:53 Now, when the pancreas secretes insulin, because it's got this stimulus from the elevated blood sugar, then the cells in my body can take insulin from the bloodstream and bring them into the cells so they can use them for energy.

02:05 My blood sugar should go back to normal, so my pancreas will no longer be stimulated to keep pushing out a large amount of insulin.

02:13 So, there are some key points here I also want you to get before we go on to the next slides.

02:18 See, everyone needs glucose in your body for energy.

02:22 But the deal is it doesn't do you any good in your bloodstream.

02:26 It's got to get into the cells, and that is the job of insulin.

02:31 That's amazing how it helps us use energy.

02:34 So, glucose is your main carbohydrate the body uses for energy.

02:38 It's always present in your blood, ready for your tissues to use when they need them.

02:43 Now, you can store glucose in your skeletal muscles and in your liver.

02:46 Those are 2 predominant places that you do.

02:49 But remember, main carbohydrate is glucose.

02:53 We need it for energy, but before I can use it, I've got to get it out of the bloodstream and into my cells.

02:59 It's always present in your blood.

03:01 You'll get that normal blood sugar, 90-100, so it's always there.

03:05 But when it rises above that, that's when the pancreas is stimulated to secrete more insulin, so I can take the excess and store it in my tissues, so it's ready when I need it.

03:16 Okay.

03:16 Glucose needs insulin.

03:19 It does your body no good if you don't have insulin to help you get the glucose into your cell.

03:24 Now, I love what they did with this.

03:26 This is brilliant.

03:27 So this will help you understand why glucose needs insulin so much.

03:31 So, take a look at this.

03:33 We know that insulin is a hormone that allows the glucose to be absorbed by your muscles.

03:38 Without it, your blood sugar in your bloodstream is just going to keep rising and we won't be able to get that glucose into the cells.

03:46 So look at what we have here.

03:47 You see those yellow objects, that's insulin.

03:50 Now the reason the insulin is in the bloodstream is because you ate that pizza, and so now your blood sugar was rising, your pancreas was stimulated to secrete the insulin.

04:00 There's the insulin in your bloodstream.

04:02 And notice that it's shaped to fit that receptor perfectly.

04:06 Now watch what happens on the next slide.

04:08 Oooh, I know.

04:10 That's pretty cool, isn't it? This is so cool that they did this.

04:13 So insulin binds to receptor site on the plasma membranes of the cell.

04:18 So you've got the concept.

04:20 You know why the insulin is there.

04:22 Because you ate that pizza, your blood sugar went up.

04:25 So your pancreas squirted out the insulin.

04:28 The insulin binds to the receptor sites because they fit perfectly.

04:32 Now look what happens when insulin binds to the receptor site.

04:36 Ready? Yeah, that is so cool.

04:39 Look.

04:40 It opens up that channel so the glucose, those little blue balls that you see, can now go from the bloodstream into the cells.

04:48 They did a really good job of helping us visually walk through this process.

04:53 Insulin binds to the receptor, opens up that pathway, glucose can come from the bloodstream into the cell.

05:00 It's stored for energy for when you need it, and your blood glucose comes back to normal.

05:05 See, if your blood glucose is high all the time, it's going to damage and ravage your body.

05:11 It's really hard on your microvascular circulation.

05:14 You can have all kinds of issues.

05:16 You're not going to heal well.

05:18 Those are all the challenges that patients with diabetes face.

05:21 Now, you see our little alien friend there, resistance is futile.

05:26 Well, what we're going to talk about is insulin resistance.

05:29 See, there's different types of diabetics, and some people become resistant to insulin.

05:35 That means they have insulin in their body.

05:38 It might even be like they might even have a lot of insulin in their body, but it just -- the cells can't use the insulin to pull that glucose out of the bloodstream, into the cells for energy.

05:50 So, sometimes people with type 2 diabetes have extra high levels of insulin because their blood sugar is high all the time, so that pancreas just keeps pushing out the insulin wondering, "What's going on?" But the cells can't use the insulin, so the glucose -- blood glucose sugar keeps rising and rising and rising.

06:09 So one of the signs of insulin resistance is an elevated insulin level; a level higher than normal, yet their blood sugar is still also high.