The low blood sugar blues: get the lowdown on this controversial condition - Healthy Remedies

Vegetarian Times, Sept, 1996 by Lauri M. Aesoph

Wright's broader view of reactive hypoglycemia stems in part from his contention that the standard practice of measuring just blood glucose levels isn't sufficient. He believes that blood insulin levels also need to be checked. How are high insulin levels a problem? Even though our bodies do their best to keep blood sugar constant, says Wright, many people are sensitive to refined carbohydrates. In fact, he calls reactive hypoglycemia the "refined-carbohydrate disease." Vinicor too points out that reactive hypoglycemia is found more frequently in industrialized nations where processed, refined foods are commonplace. Too much white bread, soda and other simple carbohydrates raise blood sugar much higher and faster than do complex-carbohydrate foods like brown rice and pinto beans. This in turn, says Wright, creates a "hair trigger pancreas" that releases too much insulin too quickly in an effort to clear the blood of glucose. After a while, high blood insulin can become a chronic problem, and this, he says, can cause reactive hypoglycemia.

The standard test for reactive hypoglycemia checks blood glucose levels. To make a diagnosis, most doctors look not only for a glucose level that's fallen to 5 0 milligrams (mg.) or less per 100 milliliters of blood but also for symptoms to occur while the glucose level is at this low point. But Wright believes that in some people symptoms of reactive hypoglycemia can occur during an upswing in insulin that precedes the blood sugar dip by as much as half an hour. In these cases, blood glucose may very well fall to the 50 mg. level but because symptoms have already passed by then, most practitioners would not consider it to be reactive hypoglycemia. Wright checks for the syndrome by using what's called the Glucose-Insulin Tolerance Test, which measures insulin levels as well as blood sugar levels.

What about the ADA's position that symptoms are due not to reactive hypoglycemia but to emotional issues? Wright acknowledges that some cases of reactive hypoglycemia may have an emotional cause. However, unlike many doctors who conclude the problem is all in a patient's head when standard test results are negative, Wright says the problem still can be physical. He points out that besides being critical to regulating blood sugar, the adrenal glands are an integral part of the sympathetic nervous system, the body's first defense against physical and emotional stress. Too much stress can weaken these glands, eventually leading them to pump out less adrenaline and cortisol--which, of course, are responsible for pulling low blood sugar up to normal. This physical chain of events, says Wright, can cause reactive hypoglycemia.

WHAT'S THE HARM?

THERE IS some indication that reactive hypoglycemia may lead to high blood pressure. Ten years ago several studies linked high blood pressure to low blood sugar, and Wright says his experience has borne out the connection. As a matter of course, Wright runs the Glucose-Insulin Tolerance Test on all his patients with essential hypertension, which is the term for high blood pressure with no discernable cause. Wright has found that more than half of his essential hypertension patients have high blood insulin levels. Based on his experience that high insulin levels indicate the presence of hypoglycemia, Wright has treated these patients for low blood sugar, and he's found that patients' blood pressure invariably falls.