| 8.1 Can you be cured from hypoglycemia? | 8.3 Is hypoglycemia hereditary? |
| 8.2 Does hypoglycemia lead to diabetes? | 8.4 Does hypo harm the development of children? |
Probably not. But this isn't meant to be depressing. Millions of people suffer from chronic diseases and many of them are well able to follow an acceptable life. So are hypoglycemics. It's the way you look at it. With the restrictions of a diet and a healthy way of life (what's wrong with that) we can be respected caring citizens who contribute to this world with whatever is in our power and possibilities.
It seems that a lot of people will continue through life as hypoglycemics. Another group will become (type II) diabetics as their over-active pancreases are exhausted completely. Some reports about hypoglycemia slowly fading away around the age of 40 could not be confirmed.
Whether or not hypoglycemia can turn into diabetes is a point of discussion. The Diabetes Association doesn't think so but others do. Martin L. Budd mentions the relationship between hypoglycemia and diabetes in his book low blood sugar. Dr. Tintera believed hypoglycemia to be a pre-stage of diabetes. Dorothy Shultz, president of the Hypoglycemia Association, Inc., claims that no-one in their association (founded in 1967) has progressed into diabetes who has stayed pretty much with their diet and has been a member a long time. there is one remark: some people are both diabetic and hypoglycemic, suffering from huge changes in blood glucose levels after a meal, so it's not the one or the other.
One thing that does increase diabetes incidence in a population is excess sugar eating habits. Generally, hypoglycemia is a multicausal syndrome, but wrong eating habits are one factor that may cause hypoglycemia too (e.g. stress is another). Wrong eating habits (esp. sugar) put stress on our metabolic system, unbalancing it. Hypoglycemia is the state in which the regulatory system has broken down and the energy banks are empty, whereas with diabetes the pancreas (an output device) is exhausted, physically not being able to produce (sufficient) insulin anymore. Of course, there can be other causes of hypoglycemia, among others an insulinoma.
Too little research has been done to give a profound answer to the question whether suffering from hypoglycemic symptoms for years will eventually exhaust the pancreas and have diabetes as a result.
Heredity can be one of the causes too. There actually is such thing as hypoglycemic families. As with diabetes, there is a possibility of getting the symptoms if it runs in your family, but as with most hereditary diseases this also depends on your diet and way of life (both nurture and nature). There are different opinions about the question whether increased diabetes risk (e.g. because of your diabetic grandma) implies both increased diabetes and hypoglycemia risk, or just diabetes.
Very little research is done in this field. It is known that hypoglycemic comas (rare) can have brain damage in effect. Whether or not extended hypoglycemic episodes (but not coma) during childhood negatively affect body growth or mental development is questionable. If there is connection, it's a weak one, certainly not as strong as the one between hyperglycemia (diabetes) and retinopathy or heart diseases.
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