Question
What causes low blood sugar? What should be done if you have symptoms of this condition? Thank you very much!
Answer
The causes of low blood sugar mainly include:
- Fasting low blood sugar:
- Excessive glucose utilization:
- High insulin levels: such as insulinoma; infants of mothers with high insulin levels; excessive use of insulin, sulfonylurea diabetes drugs, salicylates, propranolol, dichloroacetic acid, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, etc.
- Insufficient glucose production:
- Endocrine diseases: such as hypopituitarism, adrenal insufficiency, hypothyroidism;
- Glucose storage disease;
- Severe liver disease and hepatic congestion;
- Advanced kidney disease;
- Galactosemia (due to deficiency of galactose-1-phosphate uridyltransferase, which prevents galactose from being converted to glucose).
- Others: chronic alcoholism (inhibits gluconeogenesis); sepsis; starvation; cachexia; intense exercise, etc.
- Excessive glucose utilization:
- Postprandial (reactive) low blood sugar:
- Functional hypoglycemia (emotional instability and neuroticism, more common in middle-aged women).
- Nutritional insulin hypersecretion: such as dumping syndrome after gastric bypass surgery; after pyloroplasty and gastrojejunostomy.
- Spontaneous hypoglycemia in children.
- Mild early diabetes (delayed insulin peak).