Glucose Intolerance & Hypoglycemia

Hypoglycemia, also called low blood sugar, occurs when blood glucose drops below normal levels, or 70 mg/dL. Reactive hypoglycemia occurs within a few hours after eating. When experiencing low blood sugar, you can feel weak, irritable, hungry, shaky, dizzy, lightheaded, confused and have a headache. If you have access to a blood glucose meter, it's a good idea to test your blood sugar levels to confirm that your symptoms are associated with an episode of hypoglycemia. Glucose intolerance can worsen your blood sugar level problems, especially if your diet is high in carbohydrates.

Glucose Intolerance

Glucose intolerance is sometimes diagnosed as prediabetes, insulin resistance or the metabolic syndrome and is diagnosed with a oral glucose tolerance test, or OGTT. To perform this test, you need to drink a sugary orange solution, containing 75 g of carbohydrates. Your blood sugar levels are then measured for the next 3 hours. The higher your blood sugar levels elevate, the more intolerant to glucose you are. In other words, glucose intolerance means that your body has a hard time handling carbohydrates and sugar, mainly because your body is resistant to the action of insulin; the large blood sugar fluctuations associated with glucose intolerance can put you at risk for reactive hypoglycemia.

Hypoglycemia

If you are glucose intolerant, eating will cause a sharp rise in your blood sugar levels, especially if your meal is rich in carbohydrates from bread, rice, pasta, couscous, pizza dough, French fries, breakfast cereals, soft drinks, fruit juices, sweets or desserts. With glucose intolerance, your body has difficulty matching the amount of insulin it produces to your carb intake and produces too much insulin. As a result, your blood sugar levels may quickly drop within a few hours after your meals, causing hypoglycemia symptoms. Glucose intolerance is more common in people that have excess weight around the waist and physically inactive.

Stabilizing Your Blood Sugar Levels

To prevent unpleasant hypoglycemia episodes, you need to improve your glucose tolerance and stabilize your blood sugar levels. Losing a few pounds and walking most days of the week can help improve your tolerance to glucose and reduce your risk of suffering from hypoglycemia. Controlling your carb intake can also prevent large fluctuations in your blood sugar levels. The less carbohydrates you eat, the less your blood sugar levels will elevate. As a result, you will produce less insulin, making it less likely that you will experience low blood sugar within a few hours.

Healthy Carb-Reduced Meals

Start counting the grams of carbohydrates you eat at each of your meals. It is easy to get over 100 to 125 g of carbs per meal by eating 1 cup of cooked pasta with meatball sauce, cheese, a couple of slices of garlic bread and a can of soft drink. Replace this high-carb meal with a meal based on low-carb foods like nonstarchy vegetables, protein from meat, fish, seafood or poultry and healthy fats from avocado, olive oil or nuts. For example, you could have a big chicken and almond salad with plenty of leafy greens, an olive oil-based vinaigrette and goat cheese or serve your steak with guacamole and green beans drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil.

Glucose Intolerance & Hypoglycemia