Reactive Hypoglycemia

Thanks to Robert Miles for pointing us to the Free Dictionary

Bear in mind much of the content is republished from Wikipedia - but
then even the commercial encyclopedias can be biased, oversimplified
or just plain out of date.

I went off from the initial pages on insulin to reactive hypoglycemia
and dug out some rather disappointing papers

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/p/Reactive+hypoglycemia

A couple of the papers at the foot of the page are pdfs including the
one with the title

Research about suspected reactive hypoglycemia associated with
B-adrenergic hypersensivity and emotional distress

has some interesting graphs, but appears to suffer from arse-elbow
transposition in that they are aiming to prove the symptoms are
psychological/psychosomatic in origin rather than as I suspect you
other RH sufferers might agree that the adrenergic symptoms are a
direct response to the BG.

Again this one

Research about reactive hypoglycemia

seems to put the cart before the horse, but this bit is interesting

Harris, in his first paper [4], advocated treating
PRH with a low-carbohydrate diet and frequent small
split meals. This dietary approach remains the first
treatment of this disorder

Look at the date of this paper - 1924, long before Healthy Whole
Grains became the diet for everyman!

Both these papers and other references seem to be saying that reactive
hypoglycemia is NOT present *unless* the BG drops to truly hypo
levels.

Now I dunno about you but in my case the symptoms come about not from
the lowness of the low but from the *rate of change*. I've had more
hypo *symptoms* at 90 when I got there rapidly from 180 than I have at
60 when I got there slowly.

I don't doubt the analysis that some of the symptoms result from
changes in neurotransmitter levels including especially epinephrine (I
wonder that cortisol was not measured in one paper) but I suspect the
thoguht processes evidenced here and also here

http://tinyurl.com/65lue4

are resonsible for too many of us being written off as neurotic or
worse when there was actually something physical occurring - and more
to the point, something physical which could be *stopped* from
happening.

Another factor I suspect in my symptomology is the IR and its effect
on GLUT 4 receptors, after a postprandial peak below truly diabetic
levels my muscles seem to be unable to suck up glucose properly for
several hours before recovering, and this continues through the period
from the high BG via the reactive low until the BG comes back up to
normal.

The *main* reason I look at the BG changes as being the cause and the
neurotransmitter changes being the effect is the simple reason that by
reducing the carb input to a level that does not cause the BG to spike
and thus does not cause the post-spike drop I find the symptoms cease
to exist.

Any of you other Reactive Hypoglycemics feel free to disagree?
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Does BG spike in non-diabetics?
    ... that non-diabetes would have lower spikes, but do suspect that they have ... You state that T2s frequently deal with reactive hypoglycemia. ... I define a hypo quite simply - a low blood sugar event. ... just cause the symptoms coupled with lower than normal BGs ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
  • Re: New here/rant
    ... Reactive hypoglycemia? ... Jenny wrote: ... Oatmeal was the food that first gave me my RH symptoms. ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
  • Re: The Disease That Attacks Us All Every Day by Michele Paiva
    ... and have similar symptoms from time to time. ... HOWEVER - regardless, being "bit" was a great thing for me in some ... I'm stunned there isn't more being written in the papers. ... Prev by Date: ...
    (sci.med.diseases.lyme)