Insulin (medication) release of insulin from the pancreas. The increased insulin level causes glucose absorption and storage in cells, reduces glycogen to glucose conversion, reducing blood glucose levels, and so reducing insulin release. The result is that the blood glucose level rises somewhat after eating, and within an hour or so, returns to the normal 'fasting' level. Even the best diabetic treatment with synthetic human insulin or even insulin analogs, however administered, falls far short of normal glucose control in the non-diabetic. Complicating matters is that the composition of the food eaten (see "glycemic index") affects intestinal absorption rates. Glucose from some
Glycolysis the neighboring pancreatic alpha cells to release glucagon into the blood. This, in turn, causes the liver to release glucose into the blood by breaking down stored glycogen, and by means of gluconeogenesis. If the fall in the blood glucose level is particularly rapid or severe, other glucose sensors cause the release of epinephrine from the adrenal glands into the blood. This has the same action as glucagon on glucose metabolism, but its effect is more pronounced. In the liver glucagon and epinephrine cause the phosphorylation of the key, rate limiting enzymes of glycolysis, fatty acid synthesis, cholesterol synthesis, gluconeogenesis,