Читать книгу Low Blood Sugar: The Nutritional Plan to Overcome Hypoglycaemia, with 60 Recipes - Martin Budd N.D. D.O. - Страница 6

CHAPTER 1 So what exactly is low blood sugar?

Low blood ‘sugar’ refers to a low level of glucose in the blood. There are no rigid criteria for diagnosing low blood sugar, as considerable individual variations can exist. However, a blood glucose level of below 3.5mmol/litre will usually cause the typical symptoms of low blood sugar. This is not a rare condition – everyone reading this book will have experienced the symptoms of low blood sugar at some time in their lives.

However, for such a widespread problem, it is surprisingly misunderstood. Indeed for many people almost every aspect of the low blood sugar condition is either contradictory or confusing. This is well demonstrated by the questions that I am frequently asked, examples being:

‘If diabetics with high blood sugar need to avoid sugar, why do those with low blood sugar also need to avoid sugar?’

‘Why are the symptoms and causes of low blood sugar on the increase, yet most of us eat too much sugar?’

‘Why do many people with low blood sugar develop high blood sugar [type II diabetes] in later life?’

‘My doctor has advised me to suck a sugar cube whenever I feel shaky or dizzy between meals [low blood sugar symptoms]. You advise me to avoid sugar, who is correct and why?’

‘We are told that all the carbohydrates in our diet end up as glucose in the blood. Do I therefore need to avoid all forms of carbohydrate for the remainder of my life?’

The answers to these and other questions will become apparent as you read this book.

The beginning – the discovery of low blood sugar

Perhaps low blood sugar should be termed ‘Seale Harris Syndrome’ after the American GP who first defined its symptoms in 1924. Dr Harris – a contemporary of Banting and Best, the co-discoverers of the role of insulin in diabetes – noticed that many diabetic patients attending the new insulin clinics developed symptoms of low blood sugar. Given that diabetes is characterized by a high blood sugar level, caused by the lack of insulin (a hormone that controls the level of glucose in the blood), this observation was surprising. The reason, however, was simple – many diabetics have difficulty in accurately judging their insulin requirements and often overdose themselves, producing a condition known as hyperinsulinism, which consequently causes low blood sugar (or hypo).

Crucially, Dr Harris noted that he also had several patients in his regular practice who exhibited symptoms of the ‘hypo’ reaction on a regular basis, but who were not diabetic and were therefore not taking insulin. He accurately concluded that these patients probably experienced the unpleasant symptoms of hypoglycaemia as a result of an inefficiency or imbalance in their sugar-regulating apparatus. This complex mechanism involves the islet glands of the pancreas that release insulin, the liver, to some extent the pituitary, thyroid and adrenal glands and other functions that play a part in sugar metabolism.

Dr Harris discussed his ideas with Dr Banting, who agreed that the role of insulin in non-diabetic low blood sugar offered a new aspect to the study of blood sugar balance. No papers on the topic had appeared in medical literature prior to Seale Harris’s work, but his discoveries led to numerous similar papers appearing in journals all over the world.