When you eat food, your body breaks it down into sugar that travels in your blood. To use this sugar for energy, your body needs a hormone called insulin, which is made by the pancreas.

Your intestines also release special hormones called incretins—mainly GIP and GLP‑1. These hormones act like messengers that tell the pancreas, “Hey, food is here—release insulin!” Insulin then helps sugar move from your blood into your muscles and fat cells so your body can use it.

In people with type 2 diabetes, incretins still get made, but they don’t work as well. Their cells also don’t respond properly to insulin (insulin resistance). Because of this, blood sugar stays high, and the pancreas gets overworked trying to release more insulin.

To help manage this, doctors may give:

• Insulin medicine to help sugar enter the cells, or
• Medicines that act like incretins to help the pancreas release more insulin.

GLP‑1 and GIP affect different parts of the body, including the brain, stomach, heart, and fat tissue, but they each work in their own way.

Read More: Insulin and Incretins