Introduction:

Insulin is an important drug that can be used for providing treatment to the patient with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Objective:

To describe some of the characteristics of insulin treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Methods:

The necessary information for writing this article was obtained in the trimester October-December 2020. As search engines for scientific information, Google Scholar, Pubmed and SciELO were used. Different review papers, research papers and web pages were assessed, generally less than ten years old and published in Spanish, Portuguese or English. The following keywords were used: tratamiento [treatment], insulina [insulin]; análogos de insulina [insulin analogues], diabetes mellitus. The articles not meet the above conditions were excluded. This allowed the study of eighty articles, of which 43 were referenced.

Conclusions:

Insulin is a polypeptide hormone synthesized by the β cells of the islets of Langerhans of the pancreas. Its effect is produced primarily at the liver, adipose tissue and muscle levels. It is a therapeutic option in any evolutionary phase of type 2 diabetes mellitus, when oral agents fail to achieve goals or if certain complications occur. A wide range of insulin types with different action and concentration profiles are available, allowing them to be classified in different ways. Different criteria have been established about when to start and how to guide insulin treatment in the person with type 2 diabetes mellitus, making better glycemic control possible.

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