Why do diabetics either get hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic?
In: Biology
Because their internal regulation system is broken.
In healthy humans, blood sugar – high or low – get’s regulated by the body.
Diabetics have to do it manually with syringes. They do too little they get hyperglycaemia, they do it too much they get hypoglycaemia.
Your body naturally goes through cycles of high and low blood sugar related to consuming and fasting, respectively, but has a system in place to regulate this in either direction in order to remain healthy and stable. Diabetes is involved with the disruption components of this regulation system, often resulting in sharp drops (hypoglycemia) or sustained/excessive highs (hyperglycemia).
Diabetes is the inability to absorb glucose (sugar) into the cells where it is used to make energy due to either lack of insulin (type 1), or insulin reaistance (type 2). The hyperglycemia comes from high levels of glucose in the blood. Since it cannot be processed, it stays in circulation. Hypoglycemic events occur when excess insulin or other hypoglycemic agents are used to force the glucose into the cell. type 1 diabetics are generally more sensitive to both events.
Diabetes get hyperglycemic because they are unable to produce enough insulin, or they are unable to utilize the insulin they produce, or both. Or, they are unable to produce any insulin at all.
They get hypoglycemic when they take too much medication to correct the hyperglycemia.
The amount of glucose in the bloodstream is under tight control by two hormones, insulin and glucagon. Hormones sound complicated but the underlying idea is simple: they’re short proteins that act as a liquid key, circulating in the blood. When they find a receptor on a cell, and they fit it, they can turn processes inside that cell on or off. Just like a key in a car ignition. Glucagon is an important hormone (its job is to release glucose *into* the bloodstream), but for simplicity’s sake we’ll just concentrate on its co-worker, insulin, which has the opposite job.
Insulin is the key that tells a cell: ‘Absorb Glucose From Bloodstream Now!’ Without it, two bad things happen. Your cells start running out of glucose, and the glucose level in the blood zooms: hyperglycemia. This is why there are two types of Diabetes. Type I is when the pancreas is unable to produce insulin (not enough keys in the bloodstream). Type II is when the locks on the cells that need glucose are jammed or sticky, so the bloodstream contains the right keys, but they still can’t work properly.
Without intervention, both sorts of diabetics understandably suffer hyperglycemia. But hypoglycemia is the result of *too much* insulin: too many keys, turning so many locks at once that glucose is whipped out of the bloodstream too fast for the body to keep up with. How does *that* happen?
In diabetics, the usual cause of a hypo episode isn’t injecting too much insulin, but doing things that use up glucose faster (like performing exercise, which makes you temporarily more sensitive to insulin), or don’t replenish it at the expected rate (like missing meals), without compensating for this by reducing the amount of insulin in the dose. It used to primarily affect type I diabetics, but type II people who use insulin to manage their condition (which is not that uncommon these days) can of course get it too.
Hopefully, in the future, [artificial pancreas systems](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60133358) that continually monitor blood glucose will free diabetic people from the continual balancing act between hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia.
You get high blood sugar (hyper) because it’s a disease that makes you unable to use sugar well so it builds up. You get low blood sugar (hypo) because you take a bunch of drugs to lower your blood sugar and how much depends on what food you eat and it’s hard to get perfect since it changes all the time
Your basically asking for Diabetes 101 with your question so here it is.
Diabetes is a disease where the body loses the ability to regulate its blood sugar. Think of it like a thermostat in a modern car where you set the interior to 70 degrees and the car does the rest. Heat = blood sugar, Air conditioning = insulin. It’s a bit more complex than that, but it’s simple enough for ELI5. The key here is that we need blood sugar(heat), without a certain amount of it we aren’t healthy. But too much is also bad.
When you turn the car on in the morning your thermostat tells the car it wants heat. At 2pm when the sun is shining your car is getting too hot, the thermostat says turn on the AC. Your body does the same thing, it releases a specific hormone in the body(you’ve probably heard of insulin) and insulin is like a trigger so that your cells can consume the blood sugar, like how AC will balance out the heat on a hot day. Insulin allows your cells to use the blood sugar for energy which consumes the blood sugar. But if your thermostat or AC is broken, your body can’t balance this on it’s own. Not enough insulin and too much blood sugar? Hyperglycemia. Too much insulin and not enough blood sugar? Hypoglycemia.
So diabetes and it’s types are different problems with your bodies thermostat/AC that causes problems with cells ability to use blood sugar.
Heat is always coming into the car from the outside, we need that AC. Your body should be maintaining blood sugar(heat) by balancing it’s insulin(AC) output. Type 1 diabetes is where your body(pancreas) is being attacked by your immune system and it doesn’t work anymore or barely at all. So you MUST bring your own AC(insulin) and you’re fully dependent on your own AC, the car isn’t making it. So you can bring your own AC in one shot bottles(insulin injections) or use an insulin pump which is like rigging a house window ac unit into the back seat and bypassing the car’s.
Type 2 is typically associated with bad diet and unhealthy lifestyle and your insulin production(AC) is stressed and just not working properly(think of it like a mechanical problem that causes erratic performance where the cause is poor maintenance, maybe a chipmunk nest in the compressor). Proper diet can really help as avoiding lots of sugar(heat) makes your body’s job easier and minimizes surges of blood sugar(heat) which minimizes the need for insulin(AC). This can usually get better if you develop better habits like exercise(clean the junk out of the AC compressor), don’t stress the AC(avoid high sugar foods), and weight loss(improves AC efficiency).
Latest Answers