Without understanding how hypoglycemic symptoms like ‘brain fog’ become established, no improvement to your diet and emotional outlook can be made.

To get the required energy for 24 hours, most people only eat three times a day. Any breakdown in the system of providing fuel constantly should be a clue as to how hypoglycemia (low blood sugar levels) takes hold.

After eating, your digestive system breaks down the food into usable energy. First off, your saliva produces a simple sugar, glucose.

Glucose is your energy source and it is what is referred to when low blood sugar is mentioned. Further digestion brings amino acids, which become carbohydrates. Carbs are converted to glucose (and glycogen, which is stored sugar in your body).

Extra energy is converted to fat by the liver for the body’s long-term energy needs. Your pancreas then takes over: when you eat carbohydrates it releases insulin.

This is where problems can start. When you indulge yourself with refined foods like pastries, doughnuts and white bread your pancreas goes into overdrive to release extra insulin.

Insulin creates fuel by taking glucose to your body’s cells.

This rush of insulin is extra to that produced steadily by the body for its normal energy needs. It causes our blood sugar levels to dramatically spike up and then crash. Fairly constant blood sugar levels are impossible to maintain if one is taking in caffeine, stress and refined foods all day.

The demand for insulin must drop off for periods if the system is to work at all, otherwise hypoglycemia will take hold.

This explains why, when your low blood sugar crashes, you feel fatigued. No glucose means you will be tired. No fuel (or glucose) to the brain and you will feel you have “brain fog”, along with memory loss, mood swings and even the start of depression.

Such hypoglycemic symptoms, research has shown, are the result of your lifestyle and diet.

The good news is that hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) can be overcome without too much effort and you should not think that your “foggy brain” will be with you forever. By not indulging on refined foods your body will cope better.

Change your habits of just coffee and refined products and you will start to improve your low blood sugar levels.

You will need to do a little background reading to make the right decisions for an improvement in your life. This is fortunately not expensive or difficult and can be undertaken within a week or two.



Thanks to Noel Glass for contributing this article to our Diabetes blog:

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