1. What is hypoglycemia and how do you know if you have it?
Hypoglycemia literally means “low blood sugar” and if you have hypoglycemia, you will find that you have symptoms around the food you eat. Most hypoglycemics have symptoms 2 to 5 hours after eating. Symptoms include light-headedness, weakness, shakiness, difficulty concentrating and extreme hunger. Many hypoglycemics also experience frequent sugar cravings, and that helps explain why so many hypoglycemics are overweight.
We've got more details about hypoglycemia and its symptoms here.
2. How common is hypoglycemia?
Estimates of the numbers of hypoglycemia sufferers range from 25% and up! Most don’t even know they have the problem because most doctors still don’t know how to diagnose it.
3. How do you “get” hypoglycemia?
I believe that hypoglycemia is a result of a generation of eating junk. And by “junk”, I don’t mean just junk food. Included in junk is all the over-refined and over-processed stuff we find in boxes in our supermarkets.
There's a lot more information about this in Hypoglycemia: The Other Sugar Disease, but the bottom line is that too little fiber and too much sugar mess up your metabolism until you can no longer handle sugars and low fiber carbohydrates.
4. How is hypoglycemia treated?
The two most important rules for getting your blood sugar under control are:
- Cut out sugar
- Eat small frequent meals that include protein, high fiber carbohydrate and a “good” fat
These eating strategies slow the release of glucose into your blood stream, making it much easier to avoid the blood sugar spikes and drops that cause symptoms.
5. What if my hypoglycemia is not treated?
Hypoglycemia and the sugar highs and lows that go with it are very hard on the body, especially the pancreas. It has been shown that, at diagnosis, Type II diabetics have had symptoms of hypoglycemia and blood sugar instability for 7-12 years.
That certainly got my attention! Learning that, I knew I definitely needed to get my hypoglycemia under control as soon as I could.
6. Is there a cure for hypoglycemia?
Some medical sources and some people will tell you that hypoglycemia can be “cured”. In my opinion, many people will be able to get rid of all or most of their symptoms by following a proper diet, and they will feel cured. In most (if not all) cases, however, a return to the diet that caused the hypoglycemia in the first place will result in a return of the symptoms.
