Insulin is the only hormone secreted by the beta cells on the islets in the human pancreas that can lower blood sugar. Blood sugar must pass through a channel in the body’s cell membrane to enter the cell and provide energy for the cell, and insulin is the only key that can open this channel. Inadequate insulin secretion in type 1 diabetes is like having no key In type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance is like a rusty lock. In both cases, the channel cannot be opened successfully to let glucose into the cells. As a result, glucose accumulates outside the cells, causing blood glucose to rise, while the cells are “starved” of glucose. This unequal situation, in which “wine and flesh stink and bones are frozen to death”, causes diabetes in the human body.