What is fasting Insulin and its significance for Diabetic patients?

Abstract

Diabetes is a lifestyle disorder. Lifestyle disorders can be defined as the diseases which are linked with one’s lifestyle. These are non-communicable diseases. Lifestyle disorders are caused by inappropriate lifestyle such as lack of physical exercise, unhealthy eating, alcohol etc. Basically these are the ailments that are based on the day to day activity or habits of people. The most common leading cause of these lifestyle disorders is an increasing sedentary or luxurious lifestyle. Due to this people are lacking in exercise which is very important for maintaining a healthy life circle. In this article we are going to discuss one of the lifestyle disorders named Diabetes and fasting insulin and its significance in diabetic patients.

Introduction

Diabetes is a metabolic disease that occurs when the blood glucose level in the body is too high. As we discussed above, this disease is caused by some bad lifestyle habits such as lack of exercise, bad eating habits, and adaptation of excessive luxurious life. In this disease either your body does not make enough insulin or does not use the insulin it does make. Blood glucose is the main source of energy in the body. Insulin plays the key role in managing glucose level in the body. If this insulin does not work properly then there is too much glucose in your bloodstream which can cause many health problems. Patient shows three main symptoms with diabetes which is mainly known as three P’s of diabetes

• Polydipsia (Increase thirst)
• Polyphagia (increase appetite)
• Polyuria (Excessive urine output)

Diagnosis is mainly made by blood tests such as Fasting blood sugar and Postprandial. Fasting blood sugar test is most important and confirmatory test for diabetes

Let’s just talk about Insulin!

Insulin is a peptide hormone which is secreted from the beta cells of the pancreatic islets. This is the most powerful hormone in the body and is responsible for maintaining the blood glucose level in a normal state. This hormone also helps in storing the glucose in the liver, muscles and other organs in the body. Without this hormone the body cannot store this glucose in muscles or liver and lead to various diseases.  It promotes anabolism by lowering down the serum glucose level. High levels of Insulin will lead to hypoglycemia and low levels of Insulin will lead to hyperglycemia which is called Diabetes mellitus.

Now we will discuss what fasting insulin is?

Fasting insulin is a diagnostic test to measure the amount of insulin in the blood. It is also used to monitor the insulin levels and monitor the insulin resistance.

Why do we need this test?

This test is required for the following reasons

• To detect the presence of tumor in the pancreas
• To detect the level of insulin in the blood
• To identify the insulin resistance
• To determine whether there is a need of taking the insulin from outside as a supplement medication in diabetes mellitus.

Preparation of test

As the name suggest there is a need of 12 hour fasting before test

Results of this test

• If your body developed insulin resistance then the value of insulin is more than 48mol/l
• If your body is not having any kind of insulin resistance then the value of insulin is 18-48 mol/l

Significance of fasting insulin in a diabetes patient

As mentioned above, Insulin plays a key role in maintaining the blood glucose level in the body. The fasting test is the confirmatory test for diagnosing diabetes. In the cells of every organ there is an insulin receptor which helps in the transportation of glucose inside the cells. Insulin is binding up with this insulin receptor and hence allows the glucose to enter into the cells for proper metabolism as glucose is the energy source for our body. If these receptors do not work properly or if these receptors fail to determine the insulin then there is absence of glucose uptake by the cells or if there is destruction of beta cells of the pancreas then there is a absence of secretion of insulin from pancreas and thus there is increase in the level of glucose in the blood and leads to hyperglycemia. So this fasting test is very important to determine how much insulin is produced during fasting or how well insulin is working during fasting

This test helps in

• To detect the exact level of insulin in the body
• To determine how much units of insulin is required to the patient for administration

Conclusion

So at the end of the discussion, we can say that diabetes has become the most common disease in today’s life. It sets its roots deep down into our society. This condition is related to a bad lifestyle along with genetic and environmental factors. Insulin plays a key role in managing this sugar level in our body. So it is important to diagnose this insulin level in our body. If someone is experiencing the symptoms of diabetes as mentioned above then the person must go for a fasting insulin test for diabetes. Because early diagnoses make it easy to treat this condition.