PANCREAS
AND INSULIN
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Below the stomach and near the liver there is a gland called pancreas.
There are groups of cells in the pancreas that make a hormone
called insulin. It is this insulin that assimilation of our food
by the cells in the body.
We eat rice, wheat,
potatoes, sugar and other sweets. These are starches or carbohydrates.
These are converted into glucose by our digestive system. Glucose
enters the bloodstream and flows all over
the body to feed the body cells and give them energy for functioning.
Insulin flows from the pancreace into the blood. The insulin helps
the body cells to assimilate the glucose.
Insulin also helps
the liver to store by converting glucose in to a complex Substance
glycogen. The liver releases this body sugar(glycogen) into the
bloodstream hen other parts of the body, particularly
muscles require energy.
Without insulin glucose
cannot be assimilated by the cells. If the pancreas does not produce
insulin, the body cells will be starved. And glucose will remain
in the blood, affecting the kidneys, the blood vessels,
the retina and other organs. Patients without insulin secretion
should get injections of insulin. Insulin cannot be taken by mouth
because it is destroyed by the digestive juices before it reaches
the bloodstream.
The human insulin for
injection is either made from the insulin taken from the pancreas
of animals (pigs or cattles) or is made biosynthetically. The
patients has to get as much insulin as is required and as often
as is necessary, and has to be injected into the thighs.
Most diabetics
learn how to give themselves this insulin injection. But it is
better that someone in the family should also know how to inject
the patient.
IS
INSULIN INJECTION NECESSARY FOR
EVERY
DIABETIC?
Over the years, new cures have been regularly discovered for every
disease. One of them is injectable commercial insulin. I asked
a famous allopathic doctor as to what were diabetics doing before
the discovery of insulin. He replied, "They were dying".
I asked a famous Unani hakim the same question. He replied, "There
is no record that diabetics were simply dying all along. They
should have lived with their diabetes controlled by herbal medicines”.
I requested him to name the herbel drugs that were being used
in those days, for which he replied that our elders had kept those
secrets close to their chest and the same buried with them.
There is no doubt that
insulin injection is a life-saving medicine. But, before starting
this treatment one has to find out whether diabetes can be controlled
by medicine, if the answer is "No" then only he/she
should go for insulin treatment. It is good to know how to administer
insulin injection to him/her but at the same time, it is better
some one in the family should know this simple injection technic.
In olden days insulin
was taken from the pancreas of cattle and pigs. Now commercial
insulin is prepared in new ways, synthetically, by recombinant
DNA technology from the common bacterium, E. Coli.
Anyone can learn to
give this injection to himself or herself or to other members
of the family.
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