What you need to know

Insulin is a hormone produced by your pancreas. The pancreas is small gland located near your stomach. A key job of insulin is to make sure that your blood sugar levels go down after eating. Insulin lowers your blood sugar by helping cells to use that sugar for energy.

Why Insulin Therapy?
People with diabetes have a shortage of insulin. This shortage results in high blood sugar levels. Over a long period of time, high blood sugar levels can damage the organs of the body.

People with type 1 diabetes need insulin therapy from the time of diagnosis. For people with type 2 diabetes, oral medications may be enough to control blood sugar levels - at first. Over time, many people with type 2 need insulin injections to lower high blood sugar levels and to avoid the health problems that can be caused by diabetes.

Taking insulin doesn't mean that you haven't done a good job of managing your diabetes - it is simply the way the disease progresses in most people with type 2 diabetes.

How Insulin Works

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