Hypoglycemia, also called low blood sugar, occur when your blood glucose (blood sugar) level drops too low to provide ample energy for your body's deeds. In adults or children older than 10 years, hypoglycemia is atypical except as a side effect of diabetes treatment, but it can result from other medications or diseases, hormone or enzyme deficiency, or tumors.
Glucose, a form of sugar, is an important fuel for your body. Carbohydrates are the chief dietary sources of glucose. Rice, potatoes, bread, tortillas, cereal, milk, fruit, and sweets are all carbohydrate-rich foods.
After a breakfast time, glucose molecules are absorbed into your bloodstream and carried to the cell, where they are used for sparkle. Insulin, a hormone produced by your pancreas, helps glucose enter cell. If you take contained by more glucose than your body needs at the time, your body stores the extra glucose within your liver and muscles in a form call glycogen. Your body can use the stored glucose whenever it is needed for energy between meal. Extra glucose can also be converted to fat and stored contained by fat cell.
When blood glucose begins to spill out, glucagon, another hormone produced by the pancreas, signals the liver to break down glycogen and release glucose, causing blood glucose level to rise toward a normal horizontal. If you have diabetes, this glucagon response to hypoglycemia may be impair, making it harder for your glucose levels to return to the mundane range.
Hypoglycemia: A Side Effect of Diabetes Medications
Hypoglycemia can go down in populace with diabetes who embezzle certain medication to keep their blood glucose level in control. Usually, hypoglycemia is mild and can effortlessly be treated by eating or drinking something beside carbohydrate. But left untreated, hypoglycemia can front to loss of consciousness. Although hypoglycemia can happen suddenly, it can usually be treated in the blink of an eye, bringing your blood glucose level support to normal.
Causes of Hypoglycemia
In ancestors taking certain blood-glucose lowering medication, blood glucose can fall too low for a few reasons:
* meal or snacks that are too small, delayed, or skipped
* excessive doses of insulin or some diabetes medications, including sulfonylureas and meglitinides (Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors, biguanides, and thiazolidinediones alone should not bring hypoglycemia but can when used with other diabetes medicine.)
* increased activity or exercise
* excessive drinking of alcohol
Prevention
Your diabetes treatment plan is designed to game your medication dosage and schedule to your usual meal and activities. If you help yourself to insulin but then skip a dinnertime, the insulin will still lower your blood glucose, but it will not find the food it is designed to break down. This mismatch might result in hypoglycemia.
To help prevent hypoglycemia, you should keep hold of in mind several things:
* Your diabetes medication. Some medications can do hypoglycemia. Ask your health thought provider if yours can. Also, always hold medications and insulin in the recommended doses and at the recommended times.
* Your dinnertime plan. Meet with a registered dietitian and agree on a buffet plan that fits your preferences and lifestyle. Do your best to follow this meal plan most of the time. Eat regular meal, have ample food at each dinnertime, and try not to skip meals or snacks.
* Your each day activity. Talk to your vigour care squad about whether you should hold a snack or adjust your medication before sports or exercise. If you know that you will be more helpful than usual or will be doing something that is not module of your normal routine--shoveling snow, for example--consider have a snack first.
* Alcoholic beverages. Drinking, especially on an empty stomach, can motivation hypoglycemia, even a day or two subsequent. If you drink an alcoholic beverage, always hold a snack or meal at impossible to tell apart time.
* Your diabetes management plan. Intensive diabetes management--keeping your blood glucose as close to the common range as possible to prevent long-term complications--can increase the risk of hypoglycemia. If your objective is tight control, talk to your strength care troop about ways to prevent hypoglycemia and how best to treat it if it does go off.
Treatment
If you think your blood sugar is too low, use a blood glucose meter to check your plane. If it is 70 mg/dL or below, have one of these "rushed fix" foods right away to raise your blood glucose:
* 2 or 3 glucose tablets
* 1/2 cup (4 ounces) of any fruit juice
* 1/2 cup (4 ounces) of a regular (not diet) soft drink
* 1 cup (8 ounces) of milk
* 5 or 6 pieces of strong candy
* 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar or honey
After 15 minutes, check your blood glucose again to make sure that it is no longer too low. If it is still too low, enjoy another serving. Repeat these steps until your blood glucose is at least 70. Then, if it will be an hour or more up to that time your next dinnertime, have a snack.
If you clutch insulin or a diabetes medication that can cause hypoglycemia, other carry one of the quick-fix foods near you. Wearing a medical identification bracelet or necklace is also a biddable idea.
Exercise can also wreak hypoglycemia. Check your blood glucose before you exercise.
Severe hypoglycemia can grounds you to lose consciousness. In these extreme cases when you lose consciousness and cannot eat, glucagon can be injected to suddenly raise your blood glucose height. Ask your health protection provider if having a glucagon paraphernalia at home and at work is appropriate for you. This is particularly big if you have type 1 diabetes. Your line, friends, and co-workers will need to be qualified how to give you a glucagon injection in an emergency.
Prevention of hypoglycemia while you are driving a vehicle is especially considerable. Checking blood glucose frequently and snacking as needed to keep your blood glucose above 70 mg/dL will relieve prevent accidents.
Hypoglycemia within People Who Do Not Have Diabetes
Two types of hypoglycemia can occur surrounded by people who do not own diabetes: reactive (postprandial, or after meals) and fasting (postabsorptive). Reactive hypoglycemia is not usually related to any underlying disease; fast hypoglycemia often is.
Symptoms
Symptoms of both types resemble the symptoms that associates with diabetes and hypoglycemia experience: hunger, apprehensiveness, perspiration, shakiness, dizziness, light-headedness, sleepiness, confusion, difficulty speaking, and fear anxious or weak.
If you are diagnosed near hypoglycemia, your doctor will try to find the cause by using laboratory test to measure blood glucose, insulin, and other chemicals that play a division in the body's use of animation.
Reactive Hypoglycemia
In reactive hypoglycemia, symptoms appear within 4 hours after you guzzle a meal.
Diagnosis
To diagnose reactive hypoglycemia, your doctor may
* ask you in the region of signs and symptoms
* test your blood glucose while you are have symptoms (The doctor will take a blood preview from your arm and send it to a laboratory for analysis. A personal blood glucose monitor cannot be used to diagnose reactive hypoglycemia.)
* check to see whether your symptoms straightforwardness after your blood glucose returns to 70 or above (after eating or drinking)
A blood glucose even of less than 70 mg/dL at the time of symptoms and nouns after eating will confirm the diagnosis.
The oral glucose tolerance experiment is no longer used to diagnose hypoglycemia; experts now know that the examination can actually trigger hypoglycemic symptoms.
Causes and Treatment
The cause of most cases of reactive hypoglycemia are still open to debate. Some researchers suggest that guaranteed people may be more sensitive to the body's ordinary release of the hormone epinephrine, which causes abundant of the symptoms of hypoglycemia. Others believe that deficiencies surrounded by glucagon secretion might lead to hypoglycemia.
A few cause of reactive hypoglycemia are certain, but they are singular. Gastric (stomach) surgery, for instance, can cause hypoglycemia because of the speedy passage of food into the small intestine. Also, intermittent enzyme deficiencies diagnosed untimely in vivacity, such as hereditary fructose intolerance, may create reactive hypoglycemia.
To relieve reactive hypoglycemia, some health professionals recommend taking the following steps:
* drink small meals and snacks just about every 3 hours
* exercise regularly
* eat a range of foods, including meat, poultry, fish, or nonmeat sources of protein; starchy foods such as whole-grain bread, rice, and potatoes; fruits; vegetables; and dairy products
* choose high-fiber foods
* avoid or limit foods glorious in sugar, especially on an blank stomach
Your doctor can refer you to a registered dietitian for personalized meal planning suggestion. Although some health professionals recommend a diet dignified in protein and low in carbohydrates, studies enjoy not proven the effectiveness of this nice of diet for reactive hypoglycemia.
Fasting Hypoglycemia Diagnosis
Fasting hypoglycemia is diagnosed from a blood sample that shows a blood glucose horizontal of less than 50 mg/dL after an overnight in a hurry, between meals, or after exercise.
Causes and Treatment
Causes include confident medications, alcohol, critical illnesses, hormonal deficiency, some kinds of tumors, and persuaded conditions occurring in infancy and childhood.
Medications
Medications, including some used to treat diabetes, are the most common inflict of hypoglycemia. Other medications that can mete out hypoglycemia include
* salicylates, including aspirin, when taken in large doses
* sulfa medicine, which are used to treat infections
* pentamidine, which treats a very serious humane of pneumonia
* quinine, which is used to treat malaria
If using any of these medications cause your blood glucose to drop, your doctor may advise you to stop using the drug or make over the dosage.
Alcohol
Drinking, especially binge drinking, can cause hypoglycemia because your body's breakdown of alcohol interferes next to your liver's efforts to put on a pedestal blood glucose. Hypoglycemia caused by excessive drinking can be exceedingly serious and even fatal.
Critical Illnesses
Some illnesses that affect the liver, heart, or kidneys can rationale hypoglycemia. Sepsis (overwhelming infection) and starvation are other causes of hypoglycemia. In these cases, treatment target the underlying cause.
Hormonal Deficiencies
Hormonal deficiency may cause hypoglycemia contained by very childish children, but usually not in adults. Shortages of cortisol, growth hormone, glucagon, or epinephrine can organize to fasting hypoglycemia. Laboratory test for hormone levels will determine a diagnosis and treatment. Hormone replacement treatment may be advised.
Tumors
Insulinomas, insulin-producing tumors, can motive hypoglycemia by raising your insulin level too high surrounded by relation to your blood glucose level. These tumors are particularly rare and do not usually spread to other parts of the body. Laboratory tests can pinpoint the exact wreak. Treatment involves both short-term steps to correct the hypoglycemia and medical or surgical measures to remove the tumor.
Conditions Occurring in Infancy and Childhood
Children rarely develop hypoglycemia. If they do, cause may include
* Brief intolerance to fasting, recurrently in conjunction near an illness that disturbs regular ingestion patterns. Children usually outgrow this disposition by age 10.
* Hyperinsulinism, which is the excessive production of insulin. This condition can result in transient neonatal hypoglycemia, which is common surrounded by infants of mothers with diabetes. Persistent hyperinsulinism in infants or children is a complex disorder that requires prompt evaluation and treatment by a specialist.
* Enzyme deficiency that affect carbohydrate metabolism. These deficiencies can interfere next to the body's ability to process inborn sugars, such as fructose and galactose, glycogen, or other metabolites.
* Hormonal deficiencies such as deficit of pituitary or adrenal hormones.
Hope Through Research
The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) was established by Congress surrounded by 1950 as one of the National Institutes of Health under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The NIDDK conducts and supports research surrounded by diabetes, glucose metabolism, and related conditions. Researchers supported by NIDDK are investigating topics such as
* What are the causes of hypoglycemia?
* Can islet cell transplantation exterminate hypoglycemia?
* Can laparoscopy (a surgical procedure) be used to find and remove insulinomas (insulin-producing tumors)?
* Do new frequent-glucose-monitoring devices assist prevent hypoglycemia?
* Why do repeated episodes of hypoglycemia lead to loss of awareness of hypoglycemia symptoms?
A complete almanac of clinical research studies can be found at http://ClinicalTrials.gov on the Internet.
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