Role of Incretin Hormones in the Body

00:00 Now you taking the time to understand how incretin hormones work in the body is going to help you understand the use of medication that mimic these ingredients.

00:09 Now, these hormones incretin hormones are chemical messengers that help our bodies manage blood sugar and appetite.

00:17 Hey, that's really important. Those are the two biggies.

00:20 That's why these medications are also used to treat diabetes type two.

00:25 So the incretin hormones two biggest factors that can help manage blood sugar and appetite. And that's why they initially started for the treatment of diabetes type two. And now they found that these were great for treating obesity in the appropriate case.

00:41 So let's take for an example.

00:43 We just got back from lunch about an hour ago.

00:46 How do you feel about an hour after eating lunch? Well, hopefully you feel full and you feel satisfied and you might even have energy.

00:55 That's good. But what I want to do is take a look at how our body achieves this feeling of satisfaction and energy management, and the incretins definitely play a role. But first of all, let's start in your actual intestines.

01:09 Remember, it's been about an hour since we ate, so the food is moving on through our GI system.

01:15 But inside our intestines we have special cells that are called enteroendocrine cells. Now you can think of these cells as tiny factories, and they produce chemical messengers called the incretin hormones.

01:28 Now look at the graphic you have there.

01:30 See, we have those images there so you can see the picture of the enteroendocrine cells lining the intestine.

01:38 Now, what else you need to know is there are two specific types of enteroendocrine cells you need to know about.

01:44 There are L cells and K cells.

01:47 So the L cells produce a hormone called GL-1 which stands for glucagon-like peptide-1.

01:56 The K cells produce a hormone called GIP, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide.

02:04 Okay. So GLP-1 and GIP.

02:07 Remember these are made in the enteroendocrine cells that are in your intestines, the L cells and the K cells.

02:16 Now I try to remember this because L cells create GLP and that helps me keep it straight.

02:24 So back to our example.

02:26 Like I said, we just got back from lunch about an hour ago.

02:30 And we're talking about how you feel after eating a meal.

02:33 Well, I've chewed and I've swallowed my lunch and the food entered my digestive system. Well, the enteroendocrine cells in my intestines detected that I ate this food.

02:45 So in response to that, since they picked it up, the L cells and the K cells are going to release their respective hormones.

02:53 Now, these hormones are traveling through my bloodstream to different parts of my body. So these hormones are part of a communication network inside my body. When these hormones are released, they do three important things that you're going to want to keep in mind.

03:09 So remember, these are the incretin hormones that my body is making.

03:14 So three things they do.

03:16 They tell the pancreas to release insulin.

03:19 They slow down digestion.

03:21 So that will prevent these sudden blood sugar spikes.

03:24 And they signal the brain that the person's getting full.

03:28 So the endogenous incretins inside my body, when they detect those intestines, those cells detect that I've eaten food, it releases the hormones.

03:39 And they do those three things: tell the pancreas, put out the insulin, slow down digestion to help keep a more stable blood sugar and signal to the brain that you're getting full.

03:50 So each of these responses, you can see how they help with both the treatment of type two.

03:55 Right. Release the insulin.

03:57 That'll bring down blood sugar. Slow down digestion.

04:00 That brings down blood sugar and signal the brain that you're getting full will help clients not eat as much.

04:06 Right? They'll stop earlier.

04:08 So you can see why these are some pretty amazing drugs.

04:11 But there's a lot more to them.

04:13 But this wraps up our discussion about understanding how incretin hormones that are made in the body work in the body.

04:21 In this video, we explored incretin hormones, which are the chemical messengers that stimulate insulin release and slow