What is "hypoglycemia"?

What is "hypoglycemia"?

Anne Peters, MD, FACP, CDE (Professor and Director of Clinical Diabetes Programs, USC Keck School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: How is prediabetes treated?; What happens when a diabetic doesn't get enough hydration? and more...

Hypoglycaemia means a blood sugar level that's fallen below normal, and for most people, that means below a blood sugar of 7. And as your blood sugar falls from 7 to 5 in a case of hypoglycaemia, most people will feel it; they'll feel weak, shaky, hungry. And as your blood sugar level falls much below 5 in a case of hypoglycaemia, you stop being able to think normally: you become fuzzy, you can't do math in your head if you could do it before, and you just get sort of out of it, until you might fall into a hypoglycaemic coma. But hypoglycaemia simply means that the blood sugar is falling and the brain is not getting the glucose it needs to function normally. And your brain must have glucose to function.