Agreed. “hypoglycemia” is really the symptom, not the cause.
What I have appears to be a genetic disorder (my father and his father had it) that doesn’t seem to be associated with any other health impacts. I recently realized that I should probably actually get the specifics pinned down, and that’s something I’m going to work on in the future.
My understanding (through my father, who had his hypoglycemia tested when he was younger) is that my pancreas overreacts, putting out more insulin than is necessary for any given blood sugar level. It’s particularly problematic when I consume simple sugars, as my pancreas drastically overshoots. The consequence is that, unless I eat slow-digesting foods every few hours, I feel cranky/exhausted/sad/impatient, get the shakes, and have general weakness in my muscles. If I continue to not eat, my emotional state stabilizes and I simply get really really tired. Not life threatening, but a serious interference with happiness/productivity.
But I will be looking more specifically into the causes, instead of my father’s interpretation of his own diagnoses from forty years ago.
In your shoes, I would recommend low carb diets -I’m partial to paleo, but whatever works. Keep in mind that if calories are to be kept constant, low carb diets are necessarily high fat diets, and this should ideally be animal or fruit fat—for example fish, coconut, olive, avocados …not milk fat or seed based oils.
(The paleo-fied version of this is simply to use fruits instead of grains for the carbs. Regardless of whether you do paleo, I don’t think it’s controversial that diabetes_II spectrum disorders benefit from cutting carbs, so you’ll likely end up with paleo-like macronutrient ratios one way or another anyhow.)
I would also up the exercise. I just had a quick look at Lesswrong’s “optimal exercise” routine—it is indeed optimized...for increasing strength and speed. However, if you need to lose weight (obesity will exacerbate your condition) you might want to add in extended periods of walking or running.
Also, technical correction: fruits are simple sugars. (Don’t let that stop you from fruits though, because it turns out that the simple/complex dichotomy turns out not to correlate particularly well with glycemic index anyway.)
Thank you for the advice—something I’ve already had in the works. My understanding is that typically diabetes-caused hypoglycemia is usually helped (and not harmed) by the consumption of simple sugars? One of the defining characteristics of my condition is that simple sugars make things worse, especially when I’m already experiencing the symptoms of hypoglycemia.
Well, let’s put it this way avoiding specific diagnoses: your insulin/sugar regulating system is screwed up. This is pretty common and pretty bad for your health. You should pinpoint the exact problem and fix it to the extent possible.
Do you know why you are hypoglycemic? (Diabetes? Liver failure...?) I feel that this is fairly important in determining what the diet aught to be.
Agreed. “hypoglycemia” is really the symptom, not the cause.
What I have appears to be a genetic disorder (my father and his father had it) that doesn’t seem to be associated with any other health impacts. I recently realized that I should probably actually get the specifics pinned down, and that’s something I’m going to work on in the future.
My understanding (through my father, who had his hypoglycemia tested when he was younger) is that my pancreas overreacts, putting out more insulin than is necessary for any given blood sugar level. It’s particularly problematic when I consume simple sugars, as my pancreas drastically overshoots. The consequence is that, unless I eat slow-digesting foods every few hours, I feel cranky/exhausted/sad/impatient, get the shakes, and have general weakness in my muscles. If I continue to not eat, my emotional state stabilizes and I simply get really really tired. Not life threatening, but a serious interference with happiness/productivity.
But I will be looking more specifically into the causes, instead of my father’s interpretation of his own diagnoses from forty years ago.
That’s Hyperinsulinemia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinsulinemia
It might or might not be Diabetes-II related: http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/31/Supplement_2/S262.full
In your shoes, I would recommend low carb diets -I’m partial to paleo, but whatever works. Keep in mind that if calories are to be kept constant, low carb diets are necessarily high fat diets, and this should ideally be animal or fruit fat—for example fish, coconut, olive, avocados …not milk fat or seed based oils.
(The paleo-fied version of this is simply to use fruits instead of grains for the carbs. Regardless of whether you do paleo, I don’t think it’s controversial that diabetes_II spectrum disorders benefit from cutting carbs, so you’ll likely end up with paleo-like macronutrient ratios one way or another anyhow.)
I would also up the exercise. I just had a quick look at Lesswrong’s “optimal exercise” routine—it is indeed optimized...for increasing strength and speed. However, if you need to lose weight (obesity will exacerbate your condition) you might want to add in extended periods of walking or running.
Also, technical correction: fruits are simple sugars. (Don’t let that stop you from fruits though, because it turns out that the simple/complex dichotomy turns out not to correlate particularly well with glycemic index anyway.)
Hypoglycemia is a symptom of diabetes. What you are describing is consistent with this.
Go talk to a doctor and do some blood tests, specifically fasting glucose and HbA1C.
Thank you for the advice—something I’ve already had in the works. My understanding is that typically diabetes-caused hypoglycemia is usually helped (and not harmed) by the consumption of simple sugars? One of the defining characteristics of my condition is that simple sugars make things worse, especially when I’m already experiencing the symptoms of hypoglycemia.
Well, let’s put it this way avoiding specific diagnoses: your insulin/sugar regulating system is screwed up. This is pretty common and pretty bad for your health. You should pinpoint the exact problem and fix it to the extent possible.