Insulin Tutorial 1-5

To prevent the rise in blood sugar during the morning it is a good idea to add to the long-acting insulin a small amount of regular insulin.

The addition of regular insulin to long-acting insulin is intended to ensure a more powerful insulin effect during the morning. Without regular insulin the urine sample tested before lunch might contain 5 g% of sugar, but with regular insulin it will contain only a trace of sugar, or none at all.

What have you learnt?
If you have only one insulin injection a day, it can be either a long-acting insulin without any regular insulin or preferably a long-acting insulin with a regular insulin.

Long-acting insulin + regular insulin is available either as a premixed insulin formulation or you can mix them yourself in the syringe.

There are many different sorts of

i.e., ready-made mixtures of regular and NPH insulin.
They contain 15 to 50% regular insulin and 85 to 50% NPH insulin, in proportions such as 15/85%, 25/75%, 50/50%.

Click to simulate some example cases using these types of premixed insulins:

• Humulin 30/70
• Novolin 30/70
• Humulin 50/50