Timeline for How exactly is hypoglycemia a problem?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
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May 13, 2022 at 15:12 | comment | added | Ian | The case of a diabetic who was at 400+ mg/dL and then went to <50 mg/dL due to taking insulin is partially explained by thinking about how much energy is actually in 350 mg/dL of sugar. It's less than you'd think; we only have 4-6 L of blood volume, so you're talking about 10-20 grams of sugar. You burn that in around an hour. The other big component of the explanation is that sugar may end up tied up in cells that don't need it short-term, which doesn't get reversed quickly because T1Ds mostly lack the feedback mechanism to release glucagon in response to hypoglycemia. | |
May 13, 2022 at 1:43 | vote | accept | HARVEER RAWAT | ||
May 12, 2022 at 13:20 | comment | added | Bryan Krause♦ | @Luaan As most things, it depends on the extent. Mild, temporary hyperglycemia from a meal is benign. Chronic, moderate hyperglycemia causes sustained damage. But acute, severe hyperglycemia can certainly be an immediate medical emergency and, untreated, lead to death. Death only needs to happen once to be serious, I would not underestimate the danger of hyperglycemia. | |
May 12, 2022 at 10:36 | comment | added | Luaan | It should probably be noted that hyperglycemia is usually a problem related to a long-term increase in blood sugar - just eating too much that one lunch isn't going to hurt you. The body mainly has trouble when this happens regularly. But hypoglycemia absolutely can kill just from being really physically exhausted once. There are limits to how much glucose the body can produce even if you have plenty of reserves - and if it can't produce enough to sustain the body, that's going to cause serious damage (of course especially dangerous when you're in extreme environments). | |
May 11, 2022 at 19:43 | history | edited | Bryan Krause♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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May 11, 2022 at 19:17 | comment | added | Narusan | Think of it this way, maybe: The liver and muscle store the glucose for long-term use, and the blood transports it to the tissues that need it. If you increase insulin concentrations, more glucose is taken up and stored by the liver and the muscle. If you increase glucagon, more glucose is freed by the liver to the blood. | |
May 11, 2022 at 19:14 | comment | added | Narusan | @HARVEERRAWAT Glucose can spontaneously react with proteins and change their structure, becoming so called Advanced Glycation Endproducts (AGEs), and it also messes up with the general body metabolism. | |
May 11, 2022 at 18:14 | comment | added | HARVEER RAWAT | Also please enlighten me about how exactly is hyperglycemia problematic? What exactly goes wrong then? I am sorry about the misconceptions I had regarding this. But this only motivates me to understand this disease in more and more detail. | |
May 11, 2022 at 18:12 | comment | added | HARVEER RAWAT | A diabetic ,after insulin overdose, experiences hypoglycemia. So earlier he/she was grappling with high sugar levels and with administration of insulin, sugar levels suddenly plummet. Where does the sugar disappear? Has it changed in some other form? | |
May 11, 2022 at 18:10 | comment | added | user24876 | A good analogy, which I'll have to remember when people ask me why I panic if my blood sugar become uncomfortably low. | |
May 11, 2022 at 18:01 | comment | added | Narusan | I wanted to comment the exact same analogy - beat me to it! Have my +1. Might be worth mentioning that OP got the reasoning for why hyperglycaemia is dangerous also slightly wrong. An interesting follow-up would be: If cells had magically large stores of glucose, would hypoglycaemia cause other „off-target“ issues? | |
May 11, 2022 at 17:59 | history | answered | Bryan Krause♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |