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🍬 Blood Glucose Regulation: The Insulin-Glucagon Feedback Loop

Explore how the pancreas uses insulin and glucagon in a tightly tuned negative feedback loop to hold blood glucose within a narrow healthy range, and what happens when that system fails in diabetes.

Medical Technology & Imaging Physics3DModerate60 FPS

The interactive 3D simulation shows beta and alpha cells in the islets of Langerhans responding in real time to a virtual meal or fasting period, releasing insulin or glucagon as blood glucose rises and falls to hold it near the homeostatic set point.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Use the controls to simulate eating a meal or entering a fasting state, then watch how insulin and glucagon levels rise and fall in opposition while blood glucose is pulled back toward the normal 70-100 mg/dL range; try disabling beta cell function to see how the loop breaks down in diabetes.

💡 Did You Know?

A healthy pancreas releases insulin in tiny pulses every five to fifteen minutes even between meals, a subtle oscillation that helps keep liver cells sensitive to insulin's signal rather than becoming desensitized to a constant level.

⚙ Under the hood

Explore how the pancreas uses insulin and glucagon in a tightly tuned negative feedback loop to hold blood glucose within a narrow healthy range, and what happens when that system fails in diabetes.

physiologyendocrinologydiabetesinsulinglucagonhomeostasispancreasmetabolism

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install