Hypoglycemia

It used to happen once or twice a month, usually after oversleeping, skipping a meal or doing hard exercise the day before. Mike would wake up with a blinding headache, mental confusion and violent nausea. He'd spend the first part of the morning starving but sick. He would try to eat something, which came up almost immediately, assuming he could get it down in the first place. He was wracked by dry heaves for hours. If it was possible to get some food into him before the vomiting started, the nausea would dissipate, but only slowly, over the course of hours. Exhausted from his ordeal, he'd the rest of the day sleeping.

Gradually, the condition worsened. One morning, his wife came downstairs to find him slumped over the kitchen table, nearly unconscious. The food he'd been trying to eat was scattered on the table. Frightened, she called a friend, a retired nurse. She opened a can of cola, poured half into a glass and insisted her husband drink. When he didn't want to, she told him, "Fine. Then I'll have to call an ambulance and take you to the hospital." He drank.

Over the next hour, she poured sweet drinks into him-the rest of the pop, followed by water with tablespoons of honey in it. At first, he could barely raise his head, but in a couple of hours, he improved. When he could eat some toast, she knew the crisis had passed. He recovered.

After checking in with the doctor, who felt Mike's pancreas and pronounced it fit, the couple devised an anti-low-blood-sugar routine. Mike's metabolism had always been high: he was always thin and usually hungry. But he didn't always eat when he needed to. Now, Mike has a high-protein snack just before bed, and a good breakfast first thing in the morning. Between meals, he snacks on almonds, apples and cheese. His wife watches him for signs that his blood sugar is dropping and makes sure he eats before and after doing heavy physical work. They both take digestive enzymes and eat enzyme-rich foods like sprouts, fruits and veggies, every day. They try to limit the sweets, or sandwich treats in between high-nutrition meals. He hasn't had a hypoglycemic episode in nearly 2 months.

"Normal" Hypoglycemia
Hypoglycemia is a common afternoon occurrence for most of us. If you've ever pigged out on sweets and then had a terrible headache and a drop in energy, you've been in a hypoglycemic state. Your body, which did its best to metabolize all the sugar pouring into your bloodstream, sent out vats of insulin to clear it up. It did such a good job, you experienced a rebound-so little sugar was left that you felt horrible. Maybe you even passed out from it. And all that seemed to work was to satisfy an intense craving to do it all over again. Millions of people become mildly hypoglycemic every afternoon, and run to Starbucks for a big coffee filled with caffeine and sweet flavored syrup. And a cookie-don't forget the cookie. Low blood sugar makes you hungry, crazy and mean-until that afternoon snack hits your blood system!

Hypoglycemic Attacks
Serious hypoglycemia, the type characterized by nausea, headache, inability to think straight and even fainting, doesn't happen to most people, but when it does, it can be frightening. The dramatic symptoms are your body' way of telling you you're in real danger: your blood sugar is so low that your brain and body aren't working right. And if something isn't done about it in time, symptoms can worsen in a few short hours, leading to coma, convulsions and brain damage. Did you know-having too little sugar in your blood can kill you! (And having too much can kill you, too, in a hundred different ways.)

Causes of Hypoglycemia
Hypoglycemia is usually associated with diabetes: diabetics have to make sure their blood sugar levels don't drop too low, which can happen when they take insulin. But hypoglycemia in non-diabetics may be caused by tumours, hormonal imbalances, liver problems and enzyme deficiencies. If you have experienced a serious hypoglycemic episode, it's worth a trip to your doctor to rule out physical illness.

Preventing Diet-Related Hypoglycemia and Weight Gain
But for most people, hypoglycemia is a result of poor eating habits. Skipping breakfast, eating sugary and carbohydrate-loaded snacks or meals, fasting and eating junk food can all lead to hypoglycemia. The same bad eating habits also lead to obesity, as your blood sugar skyrockets from below-normal to so much glucose your body can't possibly use it all. Your body being a conserving sort of engine, temporarily files that glucose away in the liver, as glucogen, and when your body realizes you aren't running a marathon in the next couple of hours, it's packed away in self-storage as body fat. Glucogen burns fast; body fat burns slow. It's like the difference between setting brandy aflame and trying to burn wet pine. The weight-loss lesson is this: if you only take in enough food to burn right away, there's no fat left to store.