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There’s more to diabetes than the pancreas and insulin levels, the liver also plays a major role and can complicate control.
Of course the liver’s actions are vital to your life, it stores and produces a substance called which is converted into glucose in your body. This helps keep your numbers from going too low
In non-diabetics when the numbers reach about 50 this process will happen. In diabetics, however, the liver is waaaay too helpful and will release when the numbers are already high enough, even over 100. This can make and keep BG number higher. For years I referred to this as a “switch” stuck on “on”, recently scientists have discovered a cause and name for this condition.
The switch is called CRTC2(catchy name, don’t you think?) Salk Institute researchers are quoted as saying, “In many patients with type II diabetes, CRTC2 no longer responds to rising insulin levels, and as a result, the liver is on overtime producing [day and night], even when blood sugar levels are high.” Because of this, the “average” person with Type 2 diabetes has three times the normal rate of glucose production by the liver.
It is indicated that people with are also much more likely to suffer from this problem. They have also found a key protein responsible for this called FOX06.
“In a normal animal, a glucose injection causes blood sugar level to rise initially and then it goes back to normal range within two hours,” Dr. Dong said. “In animals that made too much FOX06, blood sugar after a glucose injection doesn’t normalize within two hours. They have lost the ability to regulate the level while the liver keeps making unneeded glucose.”
Other experiments showed that diabetic mice have abnormally high levels of FOX06 in the liver, he added. Blocking the protein markedly reduced liver production of glucose, although blood sugar did not completely normalize. Within two weeks of treatment, there was significant improvement in blood sugar and glucose metabolism in diabetic mice.
source: also
At this time the only drug available to help this condition is Metformin. It’s the number one diabetes drug today, and has been used successfully for several decades. They really don’t know how Metformin works completely, they’re still discovering more about it every day. Recent research indicates that:
“Metformin, introduced as frontline therapy for uncomplicated Type 2 diabetes in the 1950s, up until now was believed to work by making the liver more sensitive to insulin. A recent Hopkins study shows, however, that metformin bypasses the stumbling block in communication and works directly in the liver cells.
Rather than an interpreter of insulin-liver communication, metformin takes over as the messenger itself…. Metformin actually mimics the action of CBP, the critical signaling protein involved in the communication between the liver and the pancreas that’s necessary for maintaining glucose production by the liver and its suppression by insulin.”
So Metformin takes over the “normal” process of the signal. Many people mistakenly believe that Metformin stops the liver action, this is not the case, it just returns it to “normal”. The liver will still release if the numbers get too low as it normally should. Source:
The study above also indicates help in finding the right dose for a person. Some people do fine with just 500 mg. where others need the max. dose for improvements.
Metformin has many other actions: which are helpful for control, but it does not stimulate insulin production, it just helps the insulin to be more effective by helping with insulin resistance.
New standards have just been announced to make prescribing Metformin the normal procedure even for people diagnosed with “pre” diabetes. They have discovered that the sooner you start taking it the less risk for complications from diabetes and also have found that it may help preserve the insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas.
I have to admit that this is one drug that the longer it’s in use the more good things I hear about it! That’s rare in this day and age.
So if you’re having a hard time controlling the numbers keep this in mind. Talk with your doctor about it. You might be having “leaky liver” issues.
Lizzy
© EMO 01/13
Knowledge is Power
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