Insulin signal transduction pathway (also known as glucose homeostasis) also exhibits oscillatory behavior. On a pathological basis, this topic is crucial to understanding certain disorders in the body such as diabetes, hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. The functioning of a signal transduction pathway is based on extra-cellular signaling that in turn creates a response which causes other subsequent responses, hence creating a chain reaction, or cascade. During the course of signaling, the cell uses each response for accomplishing some kind of a purpose along the way. Insulin secretion mechanism is a common example of signal transduction pathway mechanism. Insulin is produced by the pancreas in a
Insulin resistance associated with excess body weight. A possible explanation is that both insulin resistance and obesity often have the same cause, systematic overeating, which has the potential to lead to insulin resistance and obesity due to repeated administration of excess levels of glucose, which stimulate insulin secretion; excess levels of fructose, which raise triglyceride levels in the bloodstream; and fats, which may be absorbed easily by the adipose cells, and tend to end up as fatty tissue in a hypercaloric diet. Some scholars go as far as to claim that neither insulin resistance, nor obesity really are metabolic disorders "per se",