Hypo and aggression???

When your blood sugar drops you release adrenaline; hence the shaking, sweating and aggression associated with hypos.

The hypo/adrenaline release causes the aggression not the other way around by the way.

Type 2 hypos would normally self correct unless you are taking insulin as your pancreas although impaired would still respond.

Best

Dillinger

About 12 years ago I had a big hypo, and believed we were in the middle of a nuclear war. I also believed my mother was not helping me to escape. I started screaming at her that if she did not save me I would trash the house and smash everything in sight. So hypos definitely can cause aggression!

From my experience aggression occurs at very low blood glucose levels. Adrenalin, the fight or flight hormone ,is released by the body when blood sugar drops below normal levels and causes the symptoms of hypoglycaemia such as sweating, shaking etc.

If the brain continues to be starved of fuel due to glucose dropping to very low levels then confusion, aggression and violence can be symptoms accompanied by no recollection of your actions. It certainly isn't a conscious decision to become aggressive when experiencing a severe hypo and it is frightening to hear how your behaviour has changed in this situation.

I am type 1 but found that before i was diagnosed, when my BG levels were running really high, i had an uncontrollable temper, would even say rage, got to the point where i was arguing with random people on the street :-( Thought i had a mental problem until later when i got my levels under control, it all then corrected. Also find when i run low for extended periods i can become a little snappy at times. But nothing like pre-diagnosis.

Type 1 Diabetic: (Novorapid/Levemir) Diagnosed 2014: Extremely handsome: Always smiling

The researcher doing these hypo/aggression papers is an idiot, who should receive a Statement of the Obvious award. The link between hypos and aggression has been known for the best part of a hundred years, and now one guy is making a cottage industry out of it. Making some quite tenuous claims about it and seemingly ignoring the well known basis in the adrenalin response. Some scientists should just go get a proper job instead.

I'm not aggressive with a hypo, just feel a little irritable and fed up or can go the other way and start blubbering. Had other experiences ,where I freaked out doing the weekly shop, after work in Morrisons with my then 8 year old, ( I felt so bad afterwards) but we got through it Does it happen more in males than females, as I did hear or read about a man who had to restrained because he was attacking violently ?

Adrenalin brings about a survival response. Blood is diverted to the limbs and muscles to enable us to escape the perceived danger we are in but obviously with hardly any glucose present this reaction is a last ditch attempt to save ourselves.

The type of aggression/rage I have suffered from during severe hypos is more lashing out with my arms and legs in uncontrolled movements. It doesn't involve going ten rounds with someone which would require a lot of energy. Although your glucose level is abnormally low you still have some present to fuel your muscles into managing involuntarily thrashing around, often just before going unconscious. It is surprising to see how strong someone can be under these conditions.

If your blood glucose is normal then yes you could cause a hypo by using energy for physical aggression. Aggression during a hypo is caused by adrenalin being released as a result of hypoglycaemia triggering the fight or flight response combined with irrational behaviour due to the brain being starved of glucose. Two very different things. The first we can choose to do , the second is an involuntary situation caused by hormonal responses to hypoglycaemia.

I think when experiencing a hypo, just because your BG is low, doesnt mean your limbs are going to stop moving, your muscles run on their own fuel storage, separate from your immediate BG. Lows for me dont last that long so dont notice a difference in muscle control. Any shaking i get i believe is a symptom of my brain being starved of glucose, and also believe my brain suffers the most from immediate low BG. I also think my brain would cease to function faster than my muscle. :-/

Type 1 Diabetic: (Novorapid/Levemir) Diagnosed 2014: Extremely handsome: Always smiling

kyrani99 said:

Yes there is a store -glycogen in the muscles, and it can be used to perform some actions, moving hands and feet around etc., and even that would tax their glucose supplies. The papers I read seem to be trying to suggest that diabetes could be a violent menace to the public owing to hypos and that is outrageous. They are trying to say if you go hungry then you get aggro so if the body goes hungry, i.e., a hypo then the body gets aggro. It is still not equal aggression.

The adrenalin/ fight or flight response does not automatically translate to violence. Panic attacks, anxiety attacks both, with normal blood glucose don't translate to violence. And furthermore I can't go with the "man is a machine" paradigm of the medicos. I strongly suspect that were a humane person commits violence there has to have been a reason, provocation, threat, violation of themselves or their property. The idea that it is just a machine malfunction is IMO garbage.

I can understand a hypo in the case of T1 because they have to carefully monitor their insulin levels and if they suffer some stress the insulin would quickly get used up but that doesn't make them violent monsters. In T2 also there has to have been a reason for the depletion, possibly the liver supply low so it is not being replenished in the blood fast enough. And some drugs do cause problems. I found that both worry and depression also cause insulin resistance and maybe even the production of insulin reduced a bit. But low insulin means hyper not hypo.

Click to expand...

Can you give us some links to the articles?

Emily Deans (a psychiatrist) has a blog post about low glucose and aggressiveness. She mentions the release of hormones as others have done ( she mentions catecholamines and glucocorticoids, growth hormone, and glucagon) She suggests that 'If the blood glucose falls low enough that the brain is impaired, certainly very bizarre behavior (such as psychosis) can be observed'
http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.fr/2011/08/can-carbs-make-you-crazy-more-about.html

However she also discusses some evidence of associations between aggression and people who suffer low glucose levels (not necessarily clinically hypoglycaemic ) .
Here's one of the abstracts (dates from 1988)

'68 male habitually violent offenders and 20 male controls from the psychiatric personnel were studied by means of the glucose tolerance test. Those with an intermittent explosive disorder had much the same kind of abnormal curve as the antisocial personality group, but the return from reactive hypoglycemia to the original basal values was very rapid. It was also found that in the whole group of habitually violent offenders, the slow recovery from hypoglycemia was connected with those features which are usually considered typical of the antisocial personality'

There is also the more recent 'voodoo doll' paper ' http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2014/04/unhappy-marriages-due-low-blood-sugar (personally I find this study slightly odd and not very convincing)

Personally, when hypo, I withdraw into myself and don't want to talk to anyone or want anyone to interfere. This is (I think) because my brain can only cope with a limited amount of input (ie there is channel overload at a lower than normal level) Trying to respond to others is too much. I don't want to speak so I will be terse, I may seem rude . I still have self constraint though and as much as possible I just want to get away from others. I can't imagine being physically violent, that's not part of my nature at any time.

I remember once seeing a man in a KFC, his friend had obviously called the ambulance service because he was hypo. They were very loud asking him questions about his insulin and when he had eaten etc. He appeared to be acting aggressively but I think he was just trying to push them away .