Trying to put together some thoughts on this topic. Why does insulin work so much better when you have a background of basal insulin?
I have touched on this before, but here are some continued general thoughts on the subject. I have not worked this out into a coherent post, but wanted to put them down so I don’t forget the thoughts I had.
Walk through the thoughts and see if they make sense. It helps me to go slowly though the concepts and get my mind wrapped around it.
When insulin is absent, your body interprets that as not eating. Since for the non-D, eating means insulin will appear, this makes sense. No insulin means there must not be any food. And if there is no food, the body does not want to store glucose. Instead it wants to use glucose that is available in the blood. Not storing it, but instead using it!
When there is insulin present in your body, your body senses that it is in a “fed state”. Because insulin is release when you eat, your body determines that insulin being present means food is also present, so you must be in a “fed state”.
When in a “fed state” your body will try to store some of that for later - “I have food now, so I need to bank some of that food for later”. The process that happens when you are in a “fed state” is called glycogenesis - the conversion of glucose into stored glycogen.
So when insulin is present, your body is adept at storing glucose. Storing glucose means that glucose goes from your blood into the storage form in your skeletal muscle and liver.
A strong basal - to your body - means “I have insulin, so that means I must have food. Since I have food now, I can store it…”
The difference then - when you have a strong basal running - is that your body is going to take available glucose in your blood and tuck it away into storage. That makes the glucose in your blood more likely to be removed faster and more efficiently. So the stuff you eat will be more likely to be stored than remain available for use.
Sorry, this is just a rambling post. Let’s explore this at some time and see if we can make it coherent.