Insulin's primary role is anti-catabolic, preventing the release of free fatty acids and lipolysis.

“the main role of or one of the main roles of insulin in my mind is anti catabolism which means that it stops you breaking down tissue Everybody thinks that the role of insulin is to shove glucose into cells and I think that that is the case because that we discovered insulin and we focused on insulin because of type 1 diabetes and the treatment of type 1 diabetes in type 1 diabetes you have to take exogenous insulin you have to inject it because you don't you're not making any and in that scenario you're injecting insulin peripherally at a dose that will push glucose into cells”

“insulin's role is to stop free fatty acids being released insulin's role is to stop lipolysis oftentimes insulin is considered an anabolic hormone but it's actually really more accurately anti-catabolic”