Healthy Food Choices for Hypoglycemics

Video Transcript

DR. DAVID HILL: Today, we are going to talk about hypoglycemia and how diet can help control it. Hypoglycemia refers to anytime blood sugar goes too low. Normally, people's blood sugar runs between around 70 and around a hundred. But any individual may have blood sugars that run frequently lower or higher than that. We generally think about hypoglycemia occurring when sugar gets under about 60. At that point, many patients will begin to have some degree of weakness, fatigue, or jitters. When blood sugar falls below 50, more serious complications can occur including difficulty thinking, confusion, headache, extreme fatigue, and even seizure or coma. If you do have hypoglycemia, you may want to eat smaller, more frequent meals with plenty of complex carbohydrates. Many people think that proteins will help with hypoglycemia but they really don't. They don't get easily turn into simple sugars. And in fact, some foods like candy bars or cheeses that have a lot of fat in them as well can inhibit glucose absorption and actually hurt more than they help. Diabetic should always have an emergency supply of a simple sugar, like hard candies, glucose pills, or glucose paste. They should always have a glucagon pen available to them at all times. In severe hypoglycemia, judgment may become impaired and that patient may be too confused to even know that they need treatment. At that point, they may rely on love ones or family members to give them the glucagon injection which can save their lives. To review, hypoglycemia describes any condition where sugar goes too low, usually below 60 or 50 milligrams per deciliter. Hypoglycemia can be very difficult to diagnose but very easy to disprove. Hypoglycemia often affects diabetic patients who take medications to lower their sugar and other medications like ace inhibitors that may accidentally lower their sugar. Treating hypoglycemia involves diet, but for severe emergencies, there should also be quick sugar sources, like glucose tablets and emergencies supplies like a glucagon pen. That is diet and hypoglycemia.