In people who do not have diabetes, insulin is produced by the body in response to the rise in blood glucose level that follows the digestion of food. This enables the body to either use or store glucose from the meal. In addition to the spurts of insulin produced in response to eating, a trickle of insulin is released constantly, throughout the day and night. Insulin therapy in people with diabetes needs to fulfil both of these needs. The amount of background insulin needed by the body changes throughout the day.
Different people have different patterns, but as a rule more insulin is needed during the morning.
Some people find that they have trouble with high blood glucose levels when they wake up this is because insulin needs increase in the early hours of the morning and is called the Dawn effect . People who do not have diabetes automatically produce more insulin when it is needed. If you have recently been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, you may still be producing a little insulin yourself. This is because diabetes generally occurs before all of the beta cells in the pancreas have been destroyed. Often, the few remaining cells will produce insulin for a few weeks or months and you may not need to inject much insulin at all.