Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
As managing editor for DiabetesEveryDay I spend more time editing than I spend writing. But now and then I like to get a word or two in myself, and I have recently been completely fascinated by some calculations I made for the “Blood Sugar and Diabetes Lab Demonstration” video (see “Diabetes” tab). I’ll admit to having an intense curiosity with biology and chemistry, my chosen fields of study some “several” years ago, and I find I continue to discover things that amaze me. This is one of those amazing things.
If you’ve seen that video (or visited our booth at a trade show) you may recall that we displayed a 5 liter (1 ½ gallon) vat of fake blood to represent the average blood volume of an adult male, and we demonstrated that dropping only two, 2 gram Domino “Dots” sugar cubes into that vat is necessary to establish an excellent “blood sugar” concentration of 80 milligrams/deciliter (4.4 mmol/l). That’s 4 grams (4000 milligrams) of sugar into 5 liters (50 deciliters) of blood. And, if that tiny amount of carbohydrate makes a perfect blood sugar, we ask what happens to the rest of the carbs we eat? A large baked potato, after all, could be 65 grams of carbohydrate…32 Domino “Dots” sugar cubes.
Well, the answer, of course, is insulin. Insulin (either naturally produced by pancreatic beta cells or injected) works to remove glucose from our blood and stash it away for when we need it later. Our body is constantly “burning” glucose for energy, so it’s important to have a stored supply handy. This incredible hormone insulin is what really amazes me.
In our video we also tried to demonstrate the immense power of insulin, but to be honest the measuring units are so small that most of us have no frame of reference. Our video showed that when Toby eats 50 grams of carbohydrate she injects 4 units of insulin solution, which amounts to a good deal of water and “less than two-tenths of a milligram” of pure insulin. Who can picture 0.2 milligrams? There are 28,350 milligrams in one ounce!
So I recently thought, why not represent the insulin to food formula differently? This time, I’ll start with an imaginary amount of insulin we could easily visualize, and then calculate how much food Toby could eat to match that amount of insulin. So, I picked one ounce (28.35 grams for my metric friends) of imaginary insulin, and that’s pure insulin. One ounce is about 7 teaspoons of sugar or salt.
So, how much could Toby eat if she had 7 teaspoons of pure insulin to work with? Would you believe 21,500 pounds (9,750 kilograms for my metric friends) of carbohydrate (9,747,850 grams or 649,856 carb choices)? Yes, that one ounce of insulin would account for 650,000 apples…or 250,000 cans of soda…or 150,000 of those baked potatoes. Please don’t try this at home, however…Toby is pretty insulin sensitive and you may not be able to eat quite as much.
So what’s the point, other than a mad scientist calculating crazy numbers? This insulin to carbohydrate biological system is unbelievably fine tuned. And, whether we’re getting our insulin by injection or from struggling beta cells, the balance is difficult to manage. People with diabetes have amazing resources to help….medications, physicians, dietitians and educators can, miraculously, give you the tools to find a balance. But, they all depend upon you to do your part too; in fact, you’re the key player. Doesn’t it make sense to do everything possible to help your carbohydrate metabolism along? If you’re not sure what that means when it comes to diabetes management go back and ask your diabetes educator once again….and drop that can of soda.
THE NUMBERS
1 international unit = .0349 mg insulin
1 international unit = 12 grams carbohydrate for Toby
28,350 mg/oz. ÷ .0349 mg/ IU = 812,320 units of insulin solution to contain 1 ounce insulin
812,320 units X 12 grams carbohydrate/unit = 9,747,850 grams of carbohydrate per one ounce insulin
9,747,850 grams ÷ 28.3 grams per ounce = 344,477 ounces carbohydrate
344,477 ounces ÷ 16 ounces per pound = 21,528 pounds of carbohydrateBy Anthony Smithson–
As managing editor for DiabetesEveryDay I spend more time editing than I spend writing. But now and then I like to get a word or two in myself, and I have recently been completely fascinated by some calculations I made for the “Blood Sugar and Diabetes Lab Demonstration” video (see “Diabetes” tab). I’ll admit to having an intense curiosity with biology and chemistry, my chosen fields of study some “several” years ago, and I find I continue to discover things that amaze me. This is one of those amazing things.
If you’ve seen that video (or visited our booth at a trade show) you may recall that we displayed a 5 liter (1 ½ gallon) vat of fake blood to represent the average blood volume of an adult male, and we demonstrated that dropping only two, 2 gram Domino “Dots” sugar cubes into that vat is necessary to establish an excellent “blood sugar” concentration of 80 milligrams/deciliter (4.4 mmol/l). That’s 4 grams (4000 milligrams) of sugar into 5 liters (50 deciliters) of blood. And, if that tiny amount of carbohydrate makes a perfect blood sugar, we ask what happens to the rest of the carbs we eat? A large baked potato, after all, could be 65 grams of carbohydrate…32 Domino “Dots” sugar cubes.
Well, the answer, of course, is insulin. Insulin (either naturally produced by pancreatic beta cells or injected) works to remove glucose from our blood and stash it away for when we need it later. Our body is constantly “burning” glucose for energy, so it’s important to have a stored supply handy. This incredible hormone insulin is what really amazes me.
In our video we also tried to demonstrate the immense power of insulin, but to be honest the measuring units are so small that most of us have no frame of reference. Our video showed that when Toby eats 50 grams of carbohydrate she injects 4 units of insulin solution, which amounts to a good deal of water and “less than two-tenths of a milligram” of pure insulin. Who can picture 0.2 milligrams? There are 28,350 milligrams in one ounce!
So I recently thought, why not represent the insulin to food formula differently? This time, I’ll start with an imaginary amount of insulin we could easily visualize, and then calculate how much food Toby could eat to match that amount of insulin. So, I picked one ounce (28.35 grams for my metric friends) of imaginary insulin, and that’s pure insulin. One ounce is about 7 teaspoons of sugar or salt.
So, how much could Toby eat if she had 7 teaspoons of pure insulin to work with? Would you believe 21,500 pounds (9,750 kilograms for my metric friends) of carbohydrate (9,747,850 grams or 649,856 carb choices)? Yes, that one ounce of insulin would account for 650,000 apples…or 250,000 cans of soda…or 150,000 of those baked potatoes. Please don’t try this at home, however…Toby is pretty insulin sensitive and you may not be able to eat quite as much.
So what’s the point, other than a mad scientist calculating crazy numbers? This insulin to carbohydrate biological system is unbelievably fine tuned. And, whether we’re getting our insulin by injection or from struggling beta cells, the balance is difficult to manage. People with diabetes have amazing resources to help….medications, physicians, dietitians and educators can, miraculously, give you the tools to find a balance. But, they all depend upon you to do your part too; in fact, you’re the key player. Doesn’t it make sense to do everything possible to help your carbohydrate metabolism along? If you’re not sure what that means when it comes to diabetes management go back and ask your diabetes educator once again….and drop that can of soda.
THE NUMBERS
1 international unit = .0349 mg insulin
1 international unit = 12 grams carbohydrate for Toby
28,350 mg/oz. ÷ .0349 mg/ IU = 812,320 units of insulin solution to contain 1 ounce insulin
812,320 units X 12 grams carbohydrate/unit = 9,747,850 grams of carbohydrate per one ounce insulin
9,747,850 grams ÷ 28.3 grams per ounce = 344,477 ounces carbohydrate
344,477 ounces ÷ 16 ounces per pound = 21,528 pounds of carbohydrate
