Lab-Grown Muscle Sucks Up Sugar to Fight Diabetes
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Your muscles do more than help you move your body. They also help keep your blood sugar in check. That's because muscles use sugar (glucose) for fuel, clearing it from the blood and lowering blood sugar as a result. The skeletal muscle tissue is the largest tissue by mass in the body and requires a big portion of the body's total energy. It's responsible for taking up a significant percentage of glucose from the blood, making it crucial in glucose homeostasis. However, when you have type 2 diabetes, this process doesn't work as well. The hormone insulin helps shuttle glucose into cells, and because type 2 diabetes often comes with insulin resistance (when cells don't respond well to insulin), that means glucose can be harder for muscles to access.
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@camie Exercise can help your muscles use more sugar, which is why it's one of the first interventions recommended for diabetes. Still, many patients must take medication and, in some cases, daily insulin injections to control their blood sugar.