Introduction:

This simulation allows you to explore the affect of diet and exercise on blood glucose concentration, and the role of the hormones insulin and glucagon in regulating this.

Instructions:

• Hormone model

  Toggle between Both to explore the roles of both insulin and glucagon, and Insulin only to focus just on insulin.

• Diabetes status

  Choose between None, Type 1 and Type 2 to change the way that insulin functions to model diabetes and normal insulin function.

• Teaching mode

  Toggle this On to hide all parts of the system, and click the docks for each one on the circulatory system to toggle its visibility and switch it on. This can help you introduce each part of the system one-by-one to avoid cognitive overload.

• Show graph

  Toggle this to Yes to show a graph in the top right corner, clicking the Full screen button will make it bigger. Dragging the graph right will display earlier data if the sim has been running for more than 120 s. Icons will appear on the graphs corresponding to the timing of changes such as eating food or injecting insulin.

• Add food

  Select a food from the drop-down menu, choosing from various combinations of calorie-level and glycaemic index, then click Add to add the food to the digestive system.

• Pancreas controls

  Select Auto to allow the pancreas to automatically manage the blood glucose concentration, or toggle it off and press the +4 Insulin and +4 Glucagon buttons to manually add hormones.

• Movement controls

  Select the buttons for the different movement types and explore their effects on the rate of glucose consumption.