Insulin: Natural Insulin, Lispro, NPH & Lente Types of Insulin, Insulin Injection, Pen & Pump for Diabetes

Natural insulin is a hormone made by the islets of Langerhans, specialized cells in your pancreas. It’s produced to control your blood sugar levels by catalyzing the transport of glucose into cells.

Glucose is your body’s primary source of energy. And it’s only in the presence of insulin that your cells are able to use glucose to generate energy.

Under normal conditions, an ample amount of natural insulin is offered to maintain a healthy level of energy. However, there are two types of health predicaments that create an issue for which natural insulin falls short for energy requirements.

One is known as type 1 diabetes, wherein the islet cells degenerate to such an extent that it causes a shortage of natural insulin. An autoimmune disease is believed to be the mechanism for which islet cell are destroyed. Suspected triggers for this natural insulin production loss are genetic susceptibility or environmental factor, such as a virus.

The other reason for natural insulin to come up short in support of healthy energy is when the cells in your body fail to respond to it as they should.  This is what’s known as type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance.

In either ineffectual natural insulin circumstance, you are left with high blood sugar levels. And that can create some health problems, like:

The health resolution for diabetes is introduction of insulin from an external source. Enter insulin therapy, which shoots insulin into your body via various types and methods.

Currently, the source types of insulin are bovine (beef), porcine (pork) and recombinant (human). The types of insulin in relation to action include:

  • regular ~ rapid onset, effect lasts 6 – 8 hours
  • lispro ~ earliest maximal effect, short duration
  • NPH ~ onset of about 2 hours, longer duration of 18 – 26 hours
  • lente ~ onset of action after 2 – 4 hours, duration of 18 – 26 hours

Essentially, regular, lispro, NPH and lente types of insulin differ in how quickly they work and for how long.

Presently, insulin is administered for diabetes under your skin and the methods used are injection, pen or pump.

Insulin injection means you’ll give yourself a shot using a needle and syringe. Using insulin pens are typically less painful than an injection and the pen sends a fine spray of insulin through your skin with high-pressure air instead of a needle. Externally worn insulin pump is a light weight device that gives a continuous, steady flow of insulin through a needle infusion site.

Regardless of whether you use the injection, pen or pump method, you’ll still need to monitor your blood sugar level.

Insulin may cause you side effects, such as:

Weight gain is a common unhealthy repercussion for some on insulin.

Because fluctuations in insulin can cause hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, you should know the symptoms whether your insulin is natural or not. Symptoms of hypoglycemia include:

Symptoms of hyperglycemia are:

If high blood sugar is not treated, then these diabetic ketoacidosis symptoms may develop:

This is a life threatening situation, so get some health care attention immediately.

For type 2 diabetes, metformin may be used instead of, or with, insulin. But under no circumstances is it used to treat type 1 diabetes.

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