The digestive system builds the dietary carbohydrates that are contained in, for example, sugar, bread and other cereal products, to glucose (dextrose) from. This is absorbed by the intestinal wall into the blood and distributed throughout the entire body.
The pancreas produces in ?-cells of the islets of Langerhans of the hormone insulin. Insulin increases in muscle and fat cells, the permeability of cell membranes to glucose. In the cells the glucose is consumed for energy. Insulin also causes the glucose uptake in the liver cells, which they store in the form of glycogen. The blood sugar rises in the digestion phase and will then (a half to two hours after the last feeding) held constant within narrow limits, 80-120 mg / dl or 4,5-6,7 mmol / l. Even in long fasting blood glucose levels remain at normal levels. This is essentially the liver: first, the stored glycogen is broken down and re-released into the blood, on the other hand constantly glucose from smaller building blocks formed new (gluconeogenesis).
In case of diagnosis (often in childhood) of 