You probably don’t worry very much about hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) because so far nothing serious has happened to you.

In fact, people go for many years coping with the symptoms of hypoglycemia - dizziness, mood swings, food cravings and lack of concentration. They ignore these symptoms as they come and go.

The episodes pass and the individual feels things are back to normal. After all, he justifies, we all have family, work and more pressing worries. Male or female, we probably don’t know enough about the course of ill health. Besides, what do we know about the affects of blood sugar - low or high?

Until one day it hits us hard and we think the disease has come out of the blue. The problem with hypyglycemia is that the serious diseases like diabetes and heart problems develop slowly but surely over many years.

Before this happens we attend a doctor’s surgery. But we don’t seem to be successful in explaining our everyday symptoms: “A fuzzy feeling in the head,” “can’t concentrate”.

It’s a part of ageing and is not a separate disease, the doctor says. He ends by saying take an aspirin, see if it gets worse, and rest.

The last point you certainly hope for since one of the symptoms of low blood sugar is insomnia. The two go hand in hand and there is no proper rest until you make changes.

The symptoms that took you to the doctor are no longer causing problems. No wonder doctors can’t put their fingers on a diagnosis.

But then it returns. This is how hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) works as it is not a steady state.

In fact it is the food you eat. What you ate last night and for breakfast affects the mood swings and irritableness.

What is happening is that through eating refined foods, pastries and chocolate and drinking caffeine your blood sugar levels periodically crash. These lows demand instant relief and we indulge our food cravings, often with more doughnuts and sweets.

The cycle is endless and we soon think it is normal to lack memory and concentration. We daydream about the day we will retire because it is easier to cope with hypoglycemic effects when we don’t have to work.

With no help from anyone, we’re alone. Even our family begins to doubt our eternal jibber-jabber.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. With careful planning and research we can investigate our own symptoms. There are many resources available to access the numerous studies on low blood sugar.

Because you are not likely to get a lot of help formally, you should see it as your responsibility to understand pre-diabetes or hypoglycemia before the more serious illnesses take hold.



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

Medications For Type 2 Diabetes

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:

What Causes Diabetes