I know hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia are the opposite, but what’s the difference and is one just like diabetes?
In: Biology
Glycemia is a term for how much sugar you have in your bloodstream. It changes regularly during the day, usually increasing after you ate and decreasing between meals.
This fluctuation is caused mainly by insulin. You eat, you break down carbs and assimilate simple sugar, all those sugars go into your blood to be distributed to all your cells. Your body senses the sugar rising and produces insulin. Insulin helps organs and cells to take the sugar from the bloodstream and use it.
As anything in your body, you have a range in which everything is fine. Same goes for glycemia. Hyperglycemia is when you have too much sugar in your blood, hypoglicemia is when you have too few. Both can lead to problems.
Diabetes is a disease related to blood sugar, but it’s not exacty just hypo or hyperglycemia. Diabetes is a disease connected to insulin.
There are two types of diabetes, type I and type II.
People with type I diabetes don’t produce insulin. This can lead easily to hyperglycemia, so they have to keep a strict diet and get insulin shots. You are also at risk of hypoglycemia, if you take more insulin than what is required for the amount you ate.
Type II diabetes is often called “insulin resistance”. The person does produce insulin, but also the cells and organs do not react correctly to the insulin, almost ignoring it. Basically you are again at risk of hyperglycemia, but for different reasons. Here, diet and exercise are said to have some effect on the disease.
Diabetes is an endocrine disorder that alters the production and or use of insulin which regulates blood sugar.
It is too complex for a real ELI5, since there is more than one type of diabetes.
Where as anyone can experience high or low blood sugar. People who have diabetes do not return to “normal” quickly.
glycos is sugar, hyperglycemia is having too much blood in your sugar. You would get that from having a disease called diabetes mellitus, which is like, a latin name which basically means “sweet pee” because you pee a bunch of sweet water when you have too much sugar in your blood. The two main types of diabetes is type 1 where your body doesn’t make the chemical that is supposed to get sugar out of your blood and type 2 where your body makes the chemical just fine but it doesn’t work to make your body actually take it out.
hypoglycemia is having too little sugar, and in medical context it mostly happens when you inject a bunch of stuff to lower your blood sugar but didn’t actually have high blood sugar at that time and it goes too low.
Hyperglycemia is high Blood Sugar
Hypoglycemia is low Blood Sugar
Typically type 1 diabetics (those who’s bodies are incapable of production on insulin) are more concerned with both. Type 2 diabetics produce less insulin than a normal person, but can be regulated more through diet and exercise.
If you know people who tend to get cranky/shakey when they are hungry, that can be a symptom of hypoglycemia. Every person will react to lows and highs differently.
Diabetic here. I’ve had it for at least 20 years. My pancreas does not make insulin like a normal person’s does, so I need to take insulin injections. Insulin regulates the amount of sugar in your blood. Insulin takes sugar and converts it into energy or fat.
Hypoglycemia = not enough sugar in your blood. For me this happens if I take too much insulin , don’t eat enough carbohydrates and/or exercise too much without monitoring my sugars. For me the symptoms are sweating, nervousness, confusion and blurred vision. I’ve been mistaken as drunk before too when I was hypoglycemic. My wife has become adept at spotting the symptoms and gives me a cup of Orange Juice which usually cures me in a couple of minutes. It can be a medical emergency and eventually you can lose consciousness.
Hyperglycemia = too much sugar in your blood. If I don’t take enough insulin and/or if I eat/drink things with a lot of carbohydrates/sugar in them my blood sugars will go way up above “normal” levels since my pancreas doesn’t kick into overdrive to make insulin anymore. A normal person’s blood sugar reading might top out at 140mg/dl after a large meal but mine goes up over 500-600 if I don’t take enough insulin to “cover” the carbohydrate intake. Unlike hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia isn’t necessarily a medical emergency, but over time it damages your small blood cells in organs such as your retinas and kidneys and leads to other complications. After several hours or days you also become dehydrated (I was pissing every 30-45 minutes throughout the day and was craving water when I first got diagnosed) and develop diabetic ketoacidosis (your body doesn’t get any nutrition from what you eat and starts burning fat, which makes your blood acidic) and if you don’t take insulin you can eventually slip into a diabetic coma.
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