AKT1 and Insulin resistance: To explore the possible mechanism of different selenium tea polysaccharides in alleviating blood glucose elevation and insulin resistance, we quantified the mRNA expression levels of key targets involved in insulin sensitivity, which included the PI3K/AKT pathway and its upstream components (phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) and insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS-1)) as well as downstream elements (glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β) and glucose transporter-2 (GLUT-2)) (Figure 3G).