Metabolic Health

Here’s Why Understanding the Role of Glucagon Is Vital for Type II Diabetes.

Regarding blood glucose control, glucagon plays an equally important role as insulin.

Purpose of the Article

I wrote about numerous metabolic hormones, mainly in fat loss and muscle retention context, highlighting their intricacies and critical roles in metabolism.

In my perspective, in addition to insulin, the next critical hormone for metabolic diseases (e.g., type II diabetes) is glucagon which plays a vital role in glucose metabolism.

I explain its complicated role in simple terms by leveraging credible sources in the field. This piece is not a scientific paper and not health advice.

Inspiration for the Story

Many subscribers are interested in my metabolic and mental health content. As I wrote a lot about insulin before, some readers want to understand the role of glucagon in metabolism, weight loss, and diabetes management.

I mentioned glucagon in previous articles but did not go into detail. Thus, my goal in this piece is to provide fundamental information on this crucial hormone for awareness.

As a reminder and caveat, this article does not provide health advice. I aim to inform readers of this hormone’s critical functions, so they can confidently discuss their conditions with qualified healthcare professionals.

This fundamental information on the function of glucagon for diabetes might help those with severe metabolic conditions better understand the situation with the support of qualified healthcare professionals and the effects of prescribed medication by their physicians.

Key Functions of Glucagon

Like insulin, glucagon also is made in our pancreas. Similar to insulin, glucagon also regulates blood glucose. While insulin reduces blood sugar, glucagon increases it. In addition, glucagon prevents blood glucose from going below the threshold.

Glucagon is created in the alpha cells of the pancreas, whereas insulin is produced in beta cells. There are a few critical triggers to initiate the creation of this hormone. They are a sudden drop in blood glucose, exercise, fasting, and ingesting protein.

Let me explain the key function in simple terms. When the brain (the hypothalamus) senses the noticeable drop in blood glucose (hypoglycemia), the pancreas creates more of this hormone to increase the glucose level. So our parasympathetic nervous system forwards the signal to the pancreas to cause glucagon release.

Glucagon creates two significant effects on increasing sugar levels in the bloodstream. The first mechanism signals the liver to produce glucose from the glycogen stores.

So when we don’t eat food for a while, we can quickly empty our glycogen stores. Then ketosis starts, as I explained in an article titled Here’s Why and How to Enter Ketosis via Lifestyle Choices.

Secondly, glucagon also can assist the body in generating glucose from amino acids. The technical term for this is called gluconeogenesis which I explained in multiple articles before. In a nutshell, even if we don’t consume a single bite of carbohydrates, the body can still create sugar from proteins (amino acids).

In addition, glucagon can also stop the liver from storing glucose in the glycogen store to ensure the bloodstream gets adequate sugar. So, during the fast state or intense exercise, we cannot store sugar because glucagon stops it. Glucagon can also lower fat. Therefore, an increase in glucagon for healthy people is considered one of the weight loss secrets.

As I mentioned in my sugar paradox article, the body tightly monitors and controls glucose. It requires glucose in the right amount. Too much or too little glucose is a threat to the body. Excessive glucose is toxic, and insufficient glucose cause energy deficiency in cells.

Therefore, insulin and glucagon play a critical role in creating this delicate balance in the body. Metaphorically, insulin and glucagon keep dancing to give enough energy to the body and prevent from toxic effects of glucose.

The pancreas is a critical organ releasing insulin and glucagon hormones. If the pancreas is compromised, the body cannot control blood sugar. Thus, I see the health of the pancreas as a matter of survival for humans. However, science and technology have found ways to manage these hormones.

I documented the importance of the pancreas and how to make it healthier in an article titled Here’s How to Make Your Pancreas Healthier via Lifestyle Choices.

How and why is glucagon measured?

Glucagon levels can be measured via blood tests. Usually, specialists like endocrinologists order them. According to UCSF Health, the normal range for glucagon is 50 to 100 pg/mL.

UCSF Health informs that the provider may measure glucagon level if a person has symptoms of “hypoglycemia, glucagonoma, liver cirrhosis, multiple endocrine neoplasias, and inflammation of the pancreas.”

Interestingly, providers usually don’t measure glucagon levels for diabetes. However, in case of low glucose levels (hypoglycemia symptoms), the physicians can order the tests.

In the subsequent sections, I touched on the importance of glucagon and the necessity for monitoring it.

The Role of Glucagon in Type II Diabetes

There is an ongoing debate in medical communities that rather than a low level of insulin, a high level of glucagon might contribute to the development of type II diabetes.

For example, this scientific paper titled “Glucagon is the key factor in the development of diabetes” explains the situation and mechanisms.

Glucagon seems to be a paradoxical hormone in diabetes management. There is a significant focus on creating drugs around this hormone in managing the situations of diabetic patients.

This review paper on ELSEVIER titled Problem or solution: The strange story of glucagon informs that:

“Clinical trials are underway using drugs which block glucagon activity to treat type 2 diabetes. Conversely, exogenous glucagon can increase energy expenditure. Therefore, researchers are designing peptides that combine activation of the glucagon receptor with further incretin properties, which will treat obesity while mitigating the hyperglycaemic effects of glucagon.”

Since 442 million people live with diabetes, glucagon has attracted the attention of medical scientists, pharmacologists, biotechnologists, and service providers. Thus, the research is intense.

However, while PubMed includes around 450,000 medical reports on insulin, so far, it includes only around 52,000 reports on glucagon. So even though I keep highlighting insulin resistance as the elephant in the room, some scientists think that glucagon might even be a bigger elephant.

For example, this paper titled The elephant in the room: Why cardiologists should stop ignoring type 2 diabetes asserts that “the cardiology community should collaborate with other care providers to ensure that when and where appropriate these new therapies [Glucagon based] are used along with other evidence-based therapies to improve patient outcomes.”

Conclusions and Takeaways

As a healthy person, I take the benefits of glucagon in my metabolic health daily. For example, I thrive in my near zero carbs diet with the power of glucagon, creating adequate amounts of glucose from the proteins (amino acids) and fat molecules I consume daily.

This regime allows me to release insulin once daily, which keeps my body insulin sensitive. However, glucagon for metabolically disadvantaged individuals can be very complicated.

In general, the bodies with type II diabetes release too little insulin and too much glucagon creating challenges for blood glucose management.

Diabetes Queensland explains the situation in simple terms “After a meal, the release of glucagon is normally blocked to prevent excessive glucose production by the liver. When this fails in patients with diabetes, too much glucagon contributes to a vicious cycle that exacerbates the already high blood glucose levels of people living with diabetes.”

So the emerging research (e.g., a paper in Nature) indicates that even though glucagon is released when the body senses low glucose and stops it when it gets higher, in type II diabetics, high glucose cannot block the release of glucagon. Thus, it creates a dangerous situation for type II diabetes.

This paper concludes that “glucagon plays an important role in contributing to hyperglycemia in patients with diabetes. Utilizing hypoglycemic agents that decrease glucagon secretion or inhibit glucagon action can help improve glycemic control, making these agents a valuable resource in diabetes therapy.”

Furthermore, glucagon also plays a critical role in appetite management. However, studies indicate that glucagon-induced satiety does NOT work in obese people and type II diabetes. Nevertheless, it works well in type I diabetes.

For example, this study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism concluded that “Glucagon-induced satiety was preserved in type I diabetes but not in obesity.”

Based on this valuable information, my goal is to introduce the ghrelin hormone as I did with leptin for appetite management in another article. Appetite control is essential for healthy weight management. Ghrelin and leptin play opposite roles in appetite management.

Considering the findings of emerging studies, I firmly believe that healthcare professionals should pay as much attention to glucagon as they do to insulin for the well-being of type II diabetes. It is now clear that the role of glucagon in blood glucose management is as important as insulin.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

If you found this story valuable, you might also check the relevant stories covering hormones related to fat loss.

Here’s Why Adiponectin Matters for Fat Loss and Inflammatory Health Conditions.

Make the Body Leptin-Sensitive to Lose Visceral Fat With a Simple Metabolic Shift

Three Tips to Eliminate Insulin Resistance and Shrink Waistline

Optimize Cortisol to Melt Belly Fat and Keep Lean Muscles with Three Tips

Here’s How to Lose Fat and Retain Lean Muscles with CCK Hormone.

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