What I mean is take supplemental testosterone for example, the human body will reduce or cease endogenous production in response to supplemental testosterone. Which is why sudden discontinuation is not advisable, you’d be in for an unpleasant period of recovery.
Is the same true of insulin in type 1 diabetics?
Type 1 diabetics do not manufacture their own insulin. The pancreatic cells that would normally produce insulin have been destroyed by an auto-immune response. Without taking additional insulin, they will die, full stop. There’s no endogenous production to affect.
For type 2 diabetics, however, I am not sure of the answer. In type 2 diabetes, the body does produce insulin, but the body becomes less responsive to it. Taking additional insulin is a frequent treatment, and I have no idea if it has an effect on how much insulin your body otherwise produces.
No. In fact, insulin use makes the body more sensitive to insulin (assuming the injected insulin succeeds in lowering the sugar level). In other words, any way that one lowers their blood sugar will cause them to become more sensitive to insulin.
It’s of interest to know as well, perhaps, that (in type II diabetics, at least), anything that lowers the sugar level will not just improve insulin sensitivity but will also make the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas better able to produce more insulin.
A win-win.
For those want to know more, the concept I’ve described is termed glucose toxicity.