Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

For people with Diabetes Mellitus Type 2, won't the liver, skeletal muscles, and adiopocytes interpret the high blood glucose as excess and store it as glycogen or triglycerides rather than allowing the blood glucose levels remain high?

If Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 patients are insulin-resistant, how would injecting insulin do anything more than cause too much insulin to be in the blood since cells are not receptive to the insulin?

If no medications are taken, will blood glucose levels rise indefinitely for Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 patients?

Thank you!

Hi sciencebuddies1234,

You have some great questions! Let's start with the nature of Type 2 Diabetes.

People with Type 2 Diabetes do not express enough of the insulin receptor, which is why they are considered to be insulin-resistant. You are correct in your understanding that injecting insulin does not help patients with Type 2 Diabetes because their cells are not receptive to insulin. Only patients with Type 1 Diabetes (who do not make enough insulin) benefit from insulin injections.

What insulin does is help the cells to take up glucose from the blood. If the cells cannot respond to insulin, then they do not take up the glucose as efficiently. That's why the liver, skeletal muscles, and adipocytes are not able to take up the excess glucose - because they are not responding to insulin.

Many Type 2 diabetics can manage their blood glucose levels with diet and exercise. No, blood glucose levels will not rise indefinitely; glucose will get taken into the cells (less efficiently), and the excess is filtered out of the blood by the kidneys. In fact, one of the ways that diabetics are diagnosed is by the presence of glucose in the urine. (That method does not tell you whether the person has Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, but it does indicate the presence of excess blood glucose.)

For more information, try doing an internet search for "Type 2 diabetes." Here are some resources to get you started:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001356/
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/type-2/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus_type_2
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/type-2 ... es/DS00585

I hope this helps. Please post back here if you have more questions.

Heather