Word: hypoglycemia
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...Hypoglycemia is being diagnosed too often...
...symptoms seem to occur a few hours after meals: dizziness, weakness, tremors, sweating, even heart palpitations. Worried that they might have that "in" condition, hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), the patients consult their physicians. More often than not, after a test or two, the doctors agree with the diagnosis and prescribe a restrictive, highprotein, low-carbohydrate diet with frequent feedings. Indeed, hypoglycemia has reached epidemic proportions. Now some doctors are raising warning flags. They insist that the malady is largely illusory...
...fuel. Derived from all foods, but most quickly from carbohydrates, it is present in the blood in varying amounts at all times. Directly after meals, the glucose level rises. Then, as insulin secreted from the pancreas helps move sugar into cells, the glucose concentration drops. But in people with hypoglycemia it falls to an abnormally low level. In a small percentage of patients, low blood sugar can be traced to tumors of the pancreas, liver disease or previous gastrointestinal surgery. But most of today's cases are attributed to disturbances in sugar metabolism following meals...
...standard method of diagnosing hypoglycemia is the glucose tolerance test (GTT). After an overnight fast, the patient is given a high-glucose solution to drink. Blood samples are then taken at intervals over the next five to six hours and analyzed to see if the glucose content drops below normal levels...
...many doctors believe the test does not diagnose hypoglycemia so much as cause it. For one thing, interpreting the results is difficult because no one is sure what the normal level of glucose really should be. Depending on the specialist, the lowest "normal" can be any point between 35 mg and 60 mg of glucose in 100 ml of blood. Doctors now stress that the diagnosis cannot be based on numbers alone; the data must be matched to symptoms. One study found values as low as 22 mg per 100 ml in apparently healthy women. Says Endocrinologist Simeon Margolis...