Why do I get tired?

Hi

First thanks. From postings about reactive hypoglycemia (RH) I have written a section of my ad about the proper treatment of RH.
I have the following question. In my type of RH I get hypoglycemia after over 3 hours after eating too much sugar. When I eat more than a little sugar but not enough to get hypoglycemia I (and the 4 other people I know with my type RH) get (very?) tired. I have concluded that we produce hormones which make us insulin resistant and if we eat more than a little sugar our bodies are lowering our blood sugar while we are still somewhat insulin resistant from these hormones (it takes more than an hour before our bodies think we have cleared the hormones after stopping their production). When this happens our bodies are successful in lowering our blood sugar and since we are somewhat insulin resistant we do not get too low blood sugar (seems I go down to 60 U.S. units but that is not low enough to set off the major symptoms of hypoglycemia) but we get tired. Anyone have a guess as to why? If anyone cares here is the start of my present ad (either Science and/or Scientific American will get off the pot or I will spend a fortune next year to print it in the N.Y. Times).

I have the “hunter” (“thrifty”) gene do you?


This is an explanation of why I had such disturbing symptoms for about 50 years until I figured out that a very low sugar/starch/alcohol(S) diet seemed to be relieving my symptoms. It then took approximately an additional 2 years for almost all my symptoms to clear. It then took about 6 years and a lot of serendipity to figure out what was the problem and that turned out to be only a start of a journey. I am sorry that this explanation is long but I have been told it is complicated.

It is a fact that about ½ the women in India have my gene and it leads to all the sugar problems in pregnancy. Considering my gene leads to a diagnosis of prediabetic that is what Indians told me. I quote from one nurse who said about the sugar problems in pregnancy “it must be genetic”.

I wish to help fund a study that follows the glucose tolerance tests (GTT, see footnotes 1 and 2) of women before, during and after pregnancy.

A major reason for this study is that a doctor on PBS in 2015 drew two graphs of a GTT. GTT’s run for 2 hours. The first GTT went up and then down. He indicated this is the expected GTT. The second GTT slowed its rate of assent but was still rising as he lifted his marker. The second is my GTT (2) taken in 1964. Does anyone know the name of this doctor? He defined such people as having a “hunter” gene. He said people with this GTT did not lose weight on his weight loss diet. The diabetic community says this sounds like the “thrifty” gene. Since people with the “hunter” gene should be better able to survive famines there must be a downside to this gene. I guess one downside is that women with this gene have problems controlling their blood sugar during pregnancy.

The following paragraph contains my actionable conclusions. Details describing them and what lead up to some of these conclusions follow.

Probably my most important conclusion is that Type 2 diabetes could be due to hormones used to create insulin resistance being produced all the time. Researchers where are you? Also:

In my wildest dreams this article would eventually lead to everyone getting a baseline glucose tolerance test (GTT); I strongly suggest you ask your physician to take a GTT to find out if you have the normal GTT or the “hunter” GTT. Another dream is that doctors would publicize that you can get an autoimmune disease if you have the “hunter” gene. If you have the “hunter” gene and become chronically fatigued I suggest you see if cutting back your S improves how you feel.

Judging from what people with reactive hypoglycemia post I have a dream that doctors will realize that what is necessary to avoid all the symptoms of either form of reactive hypoglycemia is to not let the blood sugar go above an unknown value. This value can be completely different for different people. I further guess that both types of reactive hypoglycemia are due to the same autoimmune problem.

Hi

So we disagree. I have figured out that probably all HP is an autoimmune problem (one type cell in our adrenal glands). I was (lucky?) as my autoimmune problem occurred in a short period of time (1957). I have collateral damage to my adrenal glands and my bladder due to my luck. Our normal way of processing sugar involves turning off the hormones which we usually produce to create insulin resistance (that is how we save energy and why we tend to become fat, tendency is not certainty) when we eat too much sugar and produce enough insulin to keep our blood sugar from going too high even though we still are somewhat insulin resistant. After the time period you talk about we normally produce enough insulin to mop up the blood sugar as our body somehow decides we are no longer insulin resistant. We now get hypoglycemia. What has happened is if we do not need to produce insulin after turning off the hormones we do not wait the required time and we take our blood sugar down. I do not know why this leads to the symptoms it obviously does. We do not get hypoglycemia (low for me with this reaction is 60 U.S. units we don't get hypoglycemia because of our residual insulin resistance) and our high blood sugar is still within the high normal range (probably slightly above 170 for me). People with the "normal" way of processing sugar and HP have the same plumbing as we do but use it differently (we can interbreed). They now have our sugar response without the time delay as we have.