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Numerous factors can cause hypoglycemia. The following are some of the causes of hypoglycemia:

Genes:
In some patients, low blood sugar occur mainly cause of a defect in glucose production, while in others; the problem is the result of an excessive use of glucose. Sometimes the low blood sugar level is the result of both reasons. An underlying medical illness: Although it’s a matter of debate, most doctors argue that hypoglycemia doesn’t occur without an underlying medical illness that’s unrelated to what you eat. When a patient has no organic causes for hypoglycemia, the hormone epinephrine (adrenaline) is likely involved. It appears that insulin can stimulate epinephrine release in some sensitive people.

Profound Malnutrition:
If you’re severely deficient in nutrition, you’re at risk for hypoglycemia because you don’t have enough glucose in your blood.

Prolonged Exercise:
Exercising intensely for too long without eating causes hypoglycemia because the body uses up the sugar that’s stored in your liver.

Late Pregnancy:
Some women may experience hypoglycemia in late pregnancy as the result of a drop in glucose production.

Severe Liver Deficiency:
Liver deficiencies, such as glycogen storage disease in which the body lacks enzymes responsible for forming glycogen, result in the body not being able to produce enough glucose in the blood.

Liver Diseases:
These diseases include viral hepatitis and cirrhosis. Any kind of liver disease may result in a drop in blood glucose levels, because the liver stores glucose (as glycogen).The body taps into the glucose reserve in the liver for more sugar, but if the liver is diseased, it can’t properly convert glycogen to glucose.

People often suffer from many of the symptoms of hypoglycemia even when their blood sugar isn’t particularly low. The term pseudo-hypoglycemia refers to the symptoms of hypoglycemia that occur without low blood sugar.

Hypoglycemia is nowadays more common problem for many people in western countries than never before. This is in the result of having a dramatic increase of diabetes patients in the population. Treating hypoglycemia immediately after the first signs of symptoms appear is extremely important to avoid anything more serious from happening. At this article you will find out what are the warning signs and what should you do when you notice them.

Some of the first signs of hypoglycemia are usually headaches, weakness, dizziness, nervousness and sweating. Now there are more possible signs and symptoms, like blurred vision possibly, but those were some of the most common ones. These also vary from person to person, some patients may get big painful headaches while for someone else the weakness and sweating may be the first signs. What ever the symptoms are, the important part is that the condition gets fixed as quickly as just possible.

It doesn’t matter if you are suffering from diabetes or not when you get hypoglycemia, the first aid is same for everybody. The good thing is that with hypoglycemia the treatment is extremely simple, all you have to do is consume some carbohydrates. To be specific, carbohydrates that absorb fast. For this purpose, orange juice and candy are the best options, since they are able to bring your blood sugar levels back up nice and fast. If you see no improvement in about 15 minutes after taking fast absorbing carbohydrates, then take some more. After the symptoms have disappeared you may possibly want to consume more carbohydrates to prevent recurrence of the events.

If you suspect hypoglycemia, it is important that you visit your physician so that the correct diagnosis can be made. There are lots of help for people suffering from hypoglycemia around, so don’t let it get you down.

Diabetes mellitus is a disease both serious and common that is characterized by an excess amount of glucose in the urine and blood.The reason for this is that your body can’t produce enough insulin so glucose builds up in the blood and is washed off with the urine. Some Signs and symptoms of Diabetes mellitus include dehydration, fatigue, slow healing, irritated or itchy skin, and excess urine production.There are several different types and kinds of diabetes; Juvenile diabetes which is just type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes which isn’t usually insulin dependent like type 1, and gestational diabetes which occurs during pregnancy.

During type 1 diabetes your body attacks and destroys certain pancreatic cells called beta cells. Your beta cells are what produces insulin which helps move food glucose to cells for energy. With all that blood glucose floating around without the beta cells to help, the blood glucose can do serious damage to organ systems in your body.

During type 2 diabetes the body cell’s either ignore the insulin or your body isn’t producing enough.People with type 2 diabetes aren’t insulin dependent and can often manage the condition with modifications to their diet and exercise. Mostly adults age 40 or people suffering from obesity have this form of diabetes.

Three to ten percent of pregnancies are affected by gestational diabetes. Pregnancy hormones are produced that reduce the woman’s sensitivity to insulin causing high blood glucose levels.Gestational diabetes often goes away after childbirth but can be treated during pregnancy with proper diet and exercise and sometimes certain medications.

Complications can occur if diabetes is left untreated and unmanaged though they differ with each form of the disease.Type 1 and 2 diabetes can result in kidney damage,heart disease, Alzheimer’s, foot damage, and skin and mouth conditions. Gestational diabetes can affect you and your baby. Your baby can develop type 2 diabetes later in life, respiratory distress syndrome, jaundice, low blood sugar or hypoglycemia, excess growth resulting in c-section birth, and rarely death for the baby shortly before or after birth. It can affect the mother in ways such as preeclampsia which is serious and life threatening for both the mother and baby.

There is no known cure for Diabetes but there are ways to treat and manage Diabetes so that you can live a semi-normal to normal healthy lifestyle. With the right diet and exercise you can prevent yourself from ever developing complications and get relief from the symptoms you are experiencing.

According to medical research diet is one of the most vital and important factors in the treatment of diabetes.Regulating the amount of sucrose you ingest and staying away from manufactured food and junk food can keep your blood sugar in the normal range. High- fiber low-fat foods are recommended as well as slowly digested carbohydrates (i.e. beans ). Eat snacks and meals regularly. Don’t starve yourself but don’t over eat either. Controlled amounts of the vitamins and nutrients you need are very important.

People with Diabetes need certain vitamins that their bodies don’t get enough of. Biotin, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Carnitine, chromium, Inisitol, magnesium, potassium, taurine, and Zinc are all what your body needs for overall health and well being.

Diabetic supplements can greatly help treat diabetes and even prevent it. Most are all natural , obtained from plants and herbs with no side effects.However, they work at a very slow pace.They range in effects from increasing insulin production to reducing nerve damage, healing wounds, bettering liver function, and boosting your body’s immune system. But ask your doctor before you just start taking them without knowing the correct amounts. Too much or too little can either be very bad or very ineffective.

Some of you (especially baby boomers) might remember The Dirty Dozen, a blockbuster war movie from 1967 featuring an incredible cast that included Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Robert Ryan, Charles Bronson, Donald Sutherland, George Kennedy, and Telly Savalas.

Well, this article is NOT about that Dirty Dozen. It’s about a dozen foods that are downright bad & dirty for you if you’re someone dealing with low blood sugar or hypoglycemia. The characters in the movie were bad dudes, the foods on this list are bad foods. All twelve of them. Avoid them as much as possible.

Bad food #12-White rice:

All foods sit on a continuum that relates their sugar content to how fast they are used in your body. This is called the glycemic index.

In order to keep your blood sugar level constant with as few peaks and valleys as possible, you need to slow the rate at which your body converts your food to the various kinds of sugar used and stored in your body. The best way to do this is to eat foods that, in addition to supplying all the right components of nutrition, burn very slowly.

Since the goal is to slow the rate at which your food is broken down, it is important for an hypoglycemic to avoid fast burning, high glycemic foods starting with sugar, but also including refined foods. This includes white flour, white rice, and other refined and polished grains.

Bad food #11-White bread:

Yes, this is a junk food for an hypoglycemic. Every time you look at a slice of white bread you are seeing a slice of sugar – it acts in the body the same way.

Bad food #10-Donuts:

Think of it as white bread dipped in sugar. What could be worse? No wonder there’s a big hole in the middle – it’s a nutritional zero. What was just said pretty much applies to cookies and cakes in general. Anything that’s made with white flour and lots of sugar, not to mention shortening, coloring and preservatives, is BAD for you!

Bad food #9-Alcohol:

Alcohol, like sugar, contains nothing but calories. It has no nutritive value at all and moves very quickly into your blood stream. This affects your blood sugar very suddenly, and there is a corresponding drop in blood sugar as the alcohol leaves your system.

In diabetes, you can control your sugar level with injected insulin. In hypoglycemia this is not possible, and if you eat and drink foods that play havoc with your blood sugar level, you just have to live with the symptoms. It’s much better then, to avoid the booze and the feeling rotten that comes with it.

An extra caution: Read the labels on all your medications; many include alcohol. You need to find alternatives if at all possible. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you have prescription medication containing alcohol, and ask for help finding an alcohol-free alternative. Some allergy shots also contain alcohol, so check with your doctor.

Alcohol, particularly when consumed with carbohydrate, can cause an excessive release of insulin and lead to episodes of hypoglycemia. The most common scenario is when you consume alcohol and carbohydrate alone, as with a gin (alcohol) and tonic (pure carbohydrate) and a small cracker or cookie. This is a recipe for disaster, and can cause low blood sugar and its accompanying symptoms even if you never have symptoms otherwise. The occasional occurrence of alcohol-induced hypoglycemia is not necessarily an indication that you are, or will become, a chronic hypoglycemic, but whether chronic or not, hypoglycemia is hard on your body and should always be avoided if possible.

There are fairly strong links between hypoglycemia and alcohol related problems, and more than one study suggests that alcoholism can result from unchecked hypoglycemia.

Bad food #8-Fruit drinks:

Not to be confused with fruit juices, fruit drinks are 10 per cent or less real fruit with lots of sugar. They’re loaded with artificial coloring and sucrose. Definitely teeth rotters. A better choice? Fruit juice (in very small amounts). Even better? Whole fruit – since you’ll benefit from the fiber!

Bad food #7-Decaffeinated coffee:

This is bad for everybody, not just hypoglycemic. The reason is that to remove the caffeine, they add chemical solvent right into your favorite beverage.

Bad food #6-Soft drinks / pop:

Let’s see now, how do you spell increased bone breakage? P-O-P. Pop is nothing more than water, colorant, artificial flavor and SUGAR? It’s absolutely DREADFUL for anyone dealing with low blood sugar or hypoglycemia!

Bad food #5. Diet pop:

You get all the dandy benefits of pop (!?!?), plus artificial sweetener, which has been shown in studies to actually increase your sugar cravings and alter your brain chemistry.

Bad food #4-Sugary breakfast cereals:

Now here’s a guarantee: If you want to start your day in a low life-force mode, then this is the junk breakfast for you – even more so if you add to those cereals a couple toasted pieces of white bread.

Bad food #3-Deep-dish pizza:

This is an excellent way to stack, jack and pack your glycemic index tract with one big dollop of sodium, dough (white flour) and fat – an overnight weight-gain wonder.

Bad food #2-Ice cream:

Here’s a beauty, high in sugar and high in fat, for another whack attack on your pancreas and your arteries.

Alright, this is it! The number 1 in our top 12 list of really bad foods for hypoglycemics…
Bad food #1-French fries (and their cousin potato chips):

Here’s why: Both of these are unparalleled sodium-loading enzyme-dead food. And new information now shows that they’re high in acrylimide, a known cancer-causing agent. In fact, the amount of acrylimide in a serving of fast-food French fries is 300 times above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s limit set for one glass of water.

Bon appetit!

Eat well, be well, live well!

The condition known as hypoglycemia is when blood-sugar levels plummet below an acceptable level. And if you are on diabetic medication; tablets or insulin, you may find you do experience episodes of hypoglycemia.

Recognising the symptoms, understanding why it happens, and how to prevent these low blood sugar levels, as well as knowing what remedial action to take is vital…

Why It Happens

A diabetic taking medication to control high blood sugars is at risk of going too far the other way because the medication is designed to lower the normally high blood sugar levels that a diabetic has. This is because a diabetics body does not create sufficient insulin or cannot use the insulin it does have efficiently enough to keep blood sugar levels stable.

As a diabetic you can experience hypoglycemia – sometimes called ‘hypo’ for short – if you’ve taken more insulin than you need;, if you’ve had unexpected physical exertion or perhaps done some physical exercise which has created low blood sugar levels. If you are currently trying to get the right balance of carbohydrate in your diet you may experience hypoglycemia if you’ve not eaten enough carbohydrate to support your physical activity.

And of course, missing a meal is likely to give you low blood sugar levels. It can also occur during illness if you’ve stopped eating but you’re still taking your medication, especially if you are on tablets.

Drinking alcohol can induce hypoglycemia, although often not until a few hours later.

Symptoms

There are a wide range of symptoms you could experience as your body reacts to the drop in blood sugars. And the combination of symptoms can be very different from one person to the next. It’s important you know what symptoms you personally experience when your blood sugar levels drop so you can take immediate action to remedy it.

Amongst the symptoms you might get are:

Feeling hungry

Trembling

Color drains from your face

Lips tingling

Impaired balance or vision

Impaired thinking – a general ‘fuzziness’ in your head

Mood changes; anxiety, irritability or anger

Excessive sweating

Hot flushes

Slurred speech (sometimes giving the impression of inebriation)

A symptom I get – although I’ve never seen it listed anywhere – is my tongue feels numb, as if it’s ‘gone to sleep’.

Low blood sugar can be just as dangerous as continuous high-blood sugar levels although for different reasons. Because you sometimes ‘can’t think straight’ during a hypoglycemic episode it’s important you don’t put yourself at risk when you are doing any potentially dangerous activity alone; such as driving, swimming, operating machinery or working at heights. When you are about to do any of these do make sure you have an emergency supply of glucose with you, in an accessible and easily digestible form. Glucose tablets are probably the best.

If you are on insulin you may go hypoglycemic at night, during your sleep. If this happens it is unlikely you will awaken. Your spouse or partner may realise what is happening if you are restless or perspiring excessively and can wake you to administer a glucose boost.

If you wake in the morning and have had vivid dreams or nightmares or are feeling ‘hung-over’ you may have had a hypoglycemic episode. This may mean you need to adjust your insulin regime. Please discuss this with your diabetic medical team who are in the best position to advise you.

What To Do

If you feel any of these symptoms coming on you must stop what you are doing and take immediate action to bring your blood-sugar levels back up. Take glucose tables or a sweet drink, such as orange juice. Make sure your family and friends know what to do and where you keep your emergency supply, which should be with you at all times, in case you are unable to administer to yourself.

Do not ignore the symptoms – extreme hypoglycemia can result in unconsciousness, in which case emergency medical treatment will be needed.

If you experience frequent occurrences of hypoglycemia please consult your diabetes medical team.

Hypoglycemia or low blood sugar is a problem that is much over-looked by many doctors today. Hypoglycemia can be due to alimentary problems, idiopathic causes, fasting, insulinoma, endocrine problems, extrapancreatic causes, hepatic disease, and miscellaneous causes. Sometimes the cause of hypoglycemia is unknown (idiopathic). In these cases, people who are not diabetic and who do not have another known cause of hypoglycemia experience these symptoms. Hypoglycemia can produce a variety of symptoms and effects but the principal problems arise from an inadequate supply of glucose as fuel to the brain, resulting in impairment of function ( neuroglycopenia ). Insulin is a hormone that reduces blood glucose. It is produced by the pancreas in response to increased glucose levels in the blood. The symptoms of hypoglycemia can vary from person to person, as can the severity. Hypoglycemia, also called low blood sugar, occurs when your blood glucose (blood sugar) level drops too low to provide enough energy for your body’s activities. There is another type of hypoglycemia. In some people, the body simply responds differently to the digestion of foods. Some foods are digested and absorbed rapidly, resulting in a burst of glucose entering the bloodstream. Classically, hypoglycemia is diagnosed by a low blood sugar with symptoms that resolve when the sugar level returns to the normal range.

Hypoglycemia is relatively common in diabetics. In people who don’t have diabetes, some underlying causes of hypoglycemia include: certain medications; alcohol; certain cancers; critical illnesses such as kidney, liver or heart failure; hormonal deficiencies; and disorders that result in your body producing too much insulin. A rare type of hypoglycemia, known as reactive hypoglycemia, may occur in children and teens without diabetes. Some symptoms of hypoglycemia are caused when the body releases extra adrenaline (epinephrine), a hormone that raises blood sugar levels, into the bloodstream to protect against hypoglycemia. If you take in more glucose than your body needs at the time, your body stores the extra glucose in your liver and muscles in a form called glycogen. Your body can use the stored glucose whenever it is needed for energy between meals. Patients with pre-diabetes who have insulin resistance can also have low sugars on occasion if their high circulating insulin levels are further challenged by a prolonged period of fasting. Hypoglycemia can arise from many causes and can occur at any age. The most common forms of moderate and severe hypoglycemia occur as a complication of treatment of diabetes mellitus with insulin or oral medications. The adrenergic symptoms often precede the neuroglycopenic symptoms and, thus, provide an early warning system for the patient. Studies have shown that the primary stimulus for the release of catecholamines is the absolute level of plasma glucose.

Causes of Hypoglycemia

The common causes and risk factor’s of Hypoglycemia include the following:

Hypoglycemia occurs when too much insulin or oral antidiabetic medication is taken, not enough food is eaten, or from a sudden increase in the amount of exercise without an increase in food intake. Pregnancy. Renal glycosuria. Increased activity or exercise. Excessive drinking of alcohol. Hypoglycemia may result from medication changes or overdoses, infection, diet changes, metabolic changes over time, or activity changes; however, no acute cause may be found.
Symptoms of Hypoglycemia

Some sign and symptoms related to Hypoglycemia are as follows:

Hunger. Nervousness and shakiness. Headache. Dizziness or light-headedness. Heart palpitations. Tremor. Excessive sweating. Sleeping difficulty. Cold sweats. Rapid heart rate. Pale skin color. Sudden moodiness or behavior changes, such as crying for no apparent reason.
Treatment of Hypoglycemia

Here is list of the methods for treating Hypoglycemia:

A snack or drink containing sugar will raise the blood glucose level, and you should see an immediate improvement in symptoms. Eating smaller meals more frequently. To treat low blood sugar immediately, your child should eat or drink something that has sugar in it, such as orange juice, milk, or a hard candy. Regular exercise. In more serious cases, the child may have to undergo surgery to remove the pancreas. Episodes of reactive and fasting hypoglycemia in children without diabetes can also be treated with a fast-acting carbohydrate. Patients may require 6 small meals and 2-3 snacks per day. If you pass out, you will need IMMEDIATE treatment, such as an injection of glucagon or emergency treatment in a hospital.