Endocrine / VISUAL EXPLAINER
How Your Body Balances Blood Sugar Between Meals
Pancreatic hormones help coordinate glucose supply and storage. Glucagon supports liver glucose output between meals, while insulin favors storage and helps muscle and fat cells take up glucose.
READ THE IMAGE
What the illustration shows
Medical infographic titled “How Your Body Balances Blood Sugar Between Meals.” An upper-abdominal view shows the liver, pancreas within the duodenal curve, and stomach lifted to reveal the pancreas. A pink arrow represents hormones traveling through blood toward the liver. Three lower panels explain the process. Between meals, liver glycogen breakdown and new glucose production supply glucose released into a sinusoid; insulin favors storage and reduces liver glucose output. The pancreatic-islet panel shows alpha and beta cells releasing hormone symbols into a capillary containing red blood cells. The alpha-cell label identifies glucagon, and the beta-cell label identifies insulin. The after-meal panel shows insulin bound to a receptor on a muscle or fat cell, an intracellular signal, and a GLUT4-bearing vesicle moving toward the cell membrane. Glucose crosses that single membrane through GLUT4 from extracellular fluid into cytoplasm. The footer identifies this as a simplified, enlarged, not-to-scale overview and displays AllHumanBody.com with its slogan.
How to interpret this poster
- A qualitative overview, not an exclusive two-hormone switch or a diabetes-management guide.
- The GLUT4 inset represents muscle or fat cells, not every tissue; hormones and transporters are different structures.
- AI-assisted educational illustration; not physician certification, microscopy, a diagnosis or individualized medical advice.
- Fine annotations need enlargement; the full description provides an accessible text alternative.
AI-assisted educational illustration, adapted into web-sized images without changing its composition. This is general education, not an individual diagnosis or treatment recommendation.
EVIDENCE / CONTEXT
Sources and what they support
- Story of discovery: how different medications for diabetes and obesity emerged from basic research on one pancreatic hormone ↗
Alpha-cell glucagon, beta-cell insulin and liver glucose release.
- Anatomy and Physiology 2e: 24.5 Metabolic States of the Body ↗
Fed-state storage contrasted with postabsorptive liver glucose supply.
- Insulin-stimulated translocation of GLUT4 glucose transporters requires SNARE-complex proteins ↗
Insulin-responsive movement of GLUT4 from intracellular vesicles to the cell surface.
Evidence correspondence is limited to the abstract.