Diabetes: What Type Of Insulin Is Right For Me?

Rapid onset-fast acting insulin

Rapid onset-fast acting insulin always looks clear. It is fast acting and starts to work within one to 20 minutes. It peaks about one hour later and lasts from three to five hours. When you use this type of insulin, you must eat immediately after you inject.

The two rapid onset-fast acting insulin types currently available are:

1. NovoRapid (Insulin Aspart)
2. Humalog (Lispro).


Rapid onset-fast acting insulin always looks clear. It is fast acting and starts to work within one to 20 minutes. It peaks about one hour later and lasts from three to five hours. When you use this type of insulin, you must eat immediately after you inject.

The two rapid onset-fast acting insulin types currently available are:

1. NovoRapid (Insulin Aspart)
2. Humalog (Lispro).

Short-acting insulin

Short-acting insulins always look clear. They begin to lower blood glucose levels within half an hour, so you need to have your injection half an hour before eating.

Short-acting insulin has a peak effect at two to four hours and lasts for between six and eight hours. Short-acting insulin types currently available include:

1. Actrapid
2. Humulin
3. Hypurin Neutral (bovine - highly purified beef insulin).

Intermediate-acting insulin

Intermediate-acting insulins always look cloudy. They have either protamine or zinc added to delay their action. These insulins begin to work about 90 minutes after you inject, peak at four to 12 hours, and last for 16 to 24 hours.

Intermediate-acting insulins currently available include:

1. With protamine added – Protaphane, Humulin NPH and Hypurin Isophane (bovine).

Preventing Diabetes

You'll need to keep an eye on your blood sugar levels and take treatment for your diabetes for the rest of your life. If you don't have good control of your blood sugar you'll be at risk from damage to the blood vessels and nerves, with problems such as deterioration in eyesight, stroke, kidney disease and infections.

As your doctor has already explained, careful diet and pills are all that is needed in most cases. If you're overweight, simply eating less and losing weight can be enough to allow the insulin to work more effectively.

Why Use Insulin Pumps?

The number of people using insulin pump therapy to manage their diabetes is growing rapidly; roughly 250,000 people around the world use an insulin pump. Their reasons for choosing the pump are many, but generally "pumpers" all agree that it gives them tighter control and more flexibility -- both in terms of their schedule and lifestyle. This control and flexibility include advantages such as:

1. Eating what you want, when you want
2. Worrying less about low blood sugars ("hypoglycemia")
3. Living life on your terms, not a schedule of snacks and shots

There are many scientific studies that demonstrate that insulin pump therapy results in better outcomes for teens and adults with type 1 diabetes. There are also studies that show that insulin pump therapy works well in toddlers and pre-school children.

Insulin

Insulin is a hormone made by an organ in the body called the pancreas. The pancreas lies just behind the stomach. If your pancreas are not making enough insulin you will need to take man made insulin. 

The function of insulin is to help our bodies use glucose for energy. Everyone with Type 1, and some people with Type 2 diabetes, needs to take insulin to control their blood glucose levels.

There is 3 groups of insulin

There are 3 groups of insulin – animal, human (not from humans but it is man made to match human insulin) and analogues (where the chemical structure of human insulin has been changed to make the insulin work quicker or last longer).

 Nowadays, most people use human insulin and insulin analogues, although a small number of people still use animal insulin because they have some evidence that they otherwise lose their awareness of hypos, or they find animal insulin works better for them.

Glucose is the fuel our bodies run on.

When we eat, and our food is processed, the pancreas is

supposed to produce the right amount of glucose from our

blood automatically and release the right amount of insulin

into our blood.

In people with diabetes, little to no insulin is produced

or the body’s cells don’t respond correctly to the insulin

that is produced. Therefore the glucose builds up and

overflows into the urine and passes out of the body.

This is how the body loses its main source of fuel even

though the bloodstream contains good amounts of the natural

glucose.

There are three types of diabetes, type 1, type 2 and

gestational diabetes. People who have type 1 are known as

insulin-dependent.

This is an autoimmune disease where the body’s natural

system is fighting against another part of the body. In the

case of type 1 diabetes, the system attacks the insulin

producing cells and destroys them.

Therefore the pancreas can produce little to no insulin.

These people are in need of daily injections of insulin to

live. Five to ten percent of diabetes cases are type 1 in

the US. 

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