The Sugar Factory in our Bodies

If you ate food containing a little more sugar that you needed, a system in your body would go into action to prevent the elevation of the proportion of sugar in your blood.

1. First, the pancreas cells would find and distinguish the sugar molecules from among all the millions of other molecules in your blood. Moreover, they would count the sugar molecules to decide if the number were too high or too low. Amazingly, cells too small for the eye to see, without eyes, hands, or a brain know the correct proportion of sugar molecules in a fluid.

2. If the pancreas cells determine that there is more sugar in the blood than required, they decide to store the excess. But they themselves do not do the storing; they have other cells, located far away, to do this job.

3. These distant cells, unless a command to the contrary comes to them, have no desire to store sugar. But the pancreas cells send a hormone to these cells commanding them to store sugar. The formula of this hormone, called insulin, has been coded in the DNA of the pancreas cells from the moment they come into being.

4. Special enzymes in the pancreas cells (worker proteins) read this formula and produce insulin accordingly. In this production hundreds of individual enzymes perform a different function.

5. The insulin produced reaches the target cell by the most reliable and rapid communications network-the bloodstream.

6. The various cells that read the command to store sugar written in the insulin hormone obeys it unconditionally. As a result, the doors that permit sugar molecules to enter the cells are opened.

7. But these doors do not open randomly. The reservoir molecules distinguish sugar molecules from among all the hundreds of other molecule types in the blood; they intercept them and lock them inside themselves.

8. The cells always obey the commands sent to them. They do not misunderstand this command and try to intercept the wrong material, or to store more sugar than is necessary. They work with great discipline and effort.

When you drink some tea with too much sugar, this remarkable system goes into action and stores the excess sugar in your body. If this system did not function, the level of sugar in your blood would rapidly increase and you could eventually go into a coma. This wonderful system can even work in reverse when necessary. If the level of sugar in the blood falls below normal, the pancreas cells produce a different hormone called glucagon. Glucagon sends a command to those cells that were storing sugar and causes them to release it to be mixed with the blood. The cells that obey this command release the sugar they had stored.

In the intestines, carbohydrates become glucose and are assimilated into the blood. If the level of glucose rises too high, the pancreas secretes a hormone called insulin which helps the cells to absorb glucose. The hormone unites with the receptor that activates the glucose transporter. The glucose enters the cell and is converted into energy. The level of glucose in the blood remains stable. In the case of diabetes, insulin does not bond with the receptor and the transporter becomes inactive. Glucose circulates in the blood and raises its level of sugar.

How can it be that cells without a brain, nervous system, eyes or ears can manage to make such a complex calculation and carry out their function perfectly? How can these unconscious cells formed by the coming together of proteins and fat molecules do things too complicated for humans to achieve? What is the source of this remarkable awareness demonstrated by these unconscious molecules? Surely all of these delicate operations taking place in our bodies show us the existence and power of God Who rules over the universe and all living things.