Dr. Samir V Joshi

Hypoglycemia is a condition that is associated with a lower amount of glucose in the body. Since glucose is the main source of energy in the body, it creates quite a few complications in the body. In a majority of the cases, this condition is associated with diabetes. Hypoglycemia, like fever, is not a disease but a disease indicator. A quick fix to keep hypoglycemia under check is to ensure that a patient intakes high-sugar food. A long-term fix involves a doctor treating a patient for the root cause.

What are the common symptoms?

The body needs a constant supply of glucose to carry out the daily function. In a case of short supply, it presents with the following symptoms:

• Frequent heart palpitations
• Fatigue
• Irritability
• Shakiness
• Pale skin
• Sweating

As the condition worsens, the symptoms can aggravate to the following conditions:

• Frequent seizures b. Inability to complete daily work due to confusion
• Sudden loss of consciousness
• Problems related to vision such as blurred vision

People with an acute hypoglycemia can get a feeling of intoxication at times. Words get slurred while they talk.

What are the causes?

Glucose is one of the many sugar molecules that the body produces when it digests food. Glucose is one such sugar component and is the driver of energy. There are 2 reasons of diabetes. If the pancreas can’t produce enough insulin or the body is incapable of responding to the insulin. This results in a logjam of glucose in the body. To address the problem, intake of insulin is required. Too much of insulin intake can result in hypoglycemia. The latter can also befall if an adequate amount of food is not consumed while going through a medicine course of diabetes. Even too much of working out while consuming diabetic medicine can also result in hypoglycemia.

Other probable causes:

1. Alcohol consumption- A regular drinker who eats less runs a heavy risk of suffering from hypoglycemia. This blocks the liver and the latter can refrain from releasing glucose.
2. Critical illness- Hypoglycemia may occur from certain critical illnesses such as liver illness, kidney disorder, frequent starvation etc.
3. Overproduction of the insulin- A tumour of the pancreas known as the insulinoma causes the body over-produce insulin.
4. Hormonal deficiencies- Disorders related to the pituitary gland and adrenal gland runs a serious risk of suffering of hypoglycemia due to hormonal deficiencies.

What are the complications?

Some of the common complications of this conditions include loss of consciousness, seizures and at times even death. Frequent episodes of hypoglycemia can make a person go numb and speechless.

Diagnosis:

A doctor typically asks a patient to go for a fast of 12 hours in a hospital setting and then test the glucose level in the blood. It ensures that the body exhibits the correct symptoms of hypoglycemia. The doctor analyses the blood sample report and decides whether a person has this condition. The last and the final confirmation comes when the symptoms of hypoglycemia go away as soon as the blood sugar levels are increased.

Prevention:

In the case of a diabetic patient, it is necessary to ensure that a constant evaluation of the blood sugar level happens from time to time. Eating and medicine schedules need to be adhered to. Exercise too is important. 

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Natural Ways to Increase Your Testotorone

1. Lose Weight If you're overweight, shedding the excess pounds may increase your testosterone level. Overweight men are more likely to have low testosterone levels to begin with. If you are serious about losing weight, you have got to strictly limit the amount of processed sugar in your diet, as evidence is mounting that excess sugar, and fructose in particular, is the primary driving factor in the obesity epidemic. So cutting soda from your diet is essential, as is limiting fructose found in processed foods, fruit juice, excessive fruit and so-called "healthy" sweeteners. Ideally you should keep your total fructose consumption below 25 grams per day and this includes fruits. This is especially true if you have insulin resistance and are overweight, have high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol.In addition to eliminating or severely limiting fructose, it will be vital to eliminate all grains and milk in your diet. Milk has a sugar called lactose, which has been shown to increase insulin resistance so it will be wise to avoid it if you are seeking to lose weight.Refined carbohydrates like breakfast cereals, bagels, waffles, pretzels, and most other processed foods also quickly break down to sugar, increase your insulin levels, and cause insulin resistance, which is the number one underlying factor of nearly every chronic disease and condition known to man, including weight gain.As you cut these dietary troublemakers from your meals, you need to replace them with healthy substitutes like vegetables and healthy fats. Your body prefers the carbohydrates in micronutrient-dense vegetables rather than grains and sugars because it slows the conversion to simple sugars like glucose, and decreases your insulin level. When you cut grains and sugar from your meals, you typically will need to radically increase the amount of vegetables you eat, as well as make sure you are also consuming protein and healthy fats regularly.The foods you choose to eat will be the driving force behind successfully achieving your weight loss goals -- high-intensity, short-burst-type exercises, two to three times per week, combined with a comprehensive fitness plan, is important too, and has an additional benefit as well 

2. Both intermittent fasting and short intense exercise have been shown to boost testosterone.Short intense exercise has a proven positive effect on increasing testosterone levels and preventing its decline. Intermittent fasting boosts testosterone by increasing the expression of satiety hormones including insulin, leptin, adiponectin, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), colecystokinin (CKK) and melanocortins, all of which are known to potentiate healthy testosterone actions, increase libido and prevent age-related testosterone decline.Having a whey protein meal after exercise can further enhance the satiety/testosterone-boosting.

.3. Consume Plenty of Zinc the mineral zinc is important for testosterone production, and supplementing your diet for as little as six weeks has been shown to cause a marked improvement in testosterone among men with low levels. Likewise, research has shown that restricting dietary sources of zinc leads to a significant decrease in testosterone, while zinc supplementation increases itmand even protects men from exercised-induced reductions in testosterone levels. It's estimated that up to 45 percent of adults over the age of 60 may have lower than recommended zinc intakes. Your diet is the best source of zinc; along with protein-rich foods like meats and fish, other good dietary sources of zinc include raw milk, raw cheese, beans, and yogurt or kefir made from raw milk. It can be difficult to obtain enough dietary zinc if you're a vegetarian, and also for meat-eaters as well, largely because of conventional farming methods that rely heavily on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Taking too much zinc can interfere with your body's ability to absorb other minerals, especially copper, and may cause nausea as a side effect.

4. Strength TrainingIn addition to Peak Fitness, strength training is also known to boost testosterone levels, provided you are doing so intensely enough. When strength training to boost testosterone, you'll want to increase the weight and lower your number of reps, and then focus on exercises that work a large number of muscles, such as dead lifts or squats.

5. Optimize Your Vitamin D LevelsVitamin D, a steroid hormone, is essential for the healthy development of the nucleus of the sperm cell, and helps maintain semen quality and sperm count. Vitamin D also increases levels of testosterone, which may boost libido. In one study, overweight men who were given vitamin D supplements had a significant increase in testosterone levels after one year. 

6.D deficiency is currently at epidemic proportions in the United States and many other regions around the world, largely because people do not spend enough time in the sun to facilitate this important process of vitamin D production.So the first step to ensuring you are receiving all the benefits of vitamin D is to find out what your levels are using, more recently the optimal vitamin D level has been raised to 50-70 ng/ml.To get your levels into the healthy range, sun exposure is the BEST way to optimize your vitamin D levels; exposing a large amount of your skin until it turns the lightest shade of pink, at dusk or dawn is typically necessary to achieve adequate vitamin D. As a last resort, a vitamin D3 supplement can be taken orally, but research suggests the average adult needs to take 8,000 IU's of vitamin D per day in order to elevate their levels above 40 ng/ml, which is the absolute minimum for disease prevention.

6. Reduce StressWhen you're under a lot of stress, your body releases high levels of the stress hormone cortisol. This hormone actually blocks the effects of testosterone, presumably because, from a biological standpoint, testosterone-associated behaviors (mating, competing, aggression) may have lowered your chances of survival in an emergency (hence, the "fight or flight" response is dominant, courtesy of cortisol).In the modern world, chronic stress, and subsequently elevated levels of cortisol, could mean that testosterone's effects are blocked in the long term, which is what you want to avoid.My favorite overall tool to manage stress i It's a handy, Other common stress-reduction tools with a high success rate include prayer, meditation, laughter and yoga, for example. Learning relaxation skills, such as deep breathing and positive visualization, which is the "language" of the subconscious.When you create a visual image of how you'd like to feel, your subconscious will understand and begin to help you by making the needed biochemical and neurological changes.

7. Limit or Eliminate Sugar from Your DietTestosterone levels decrease after you eat sugar, which is likely because the sugar leads to a high insulin level, another factor leading to low testosterone. Based on estimates, an average person consumes 12 teaspoons of sugar a day, which equates to about TWO TONS of sugar during a lifetime.Why we eat this much sugar is not difficult to understand -- it tastes good, and it gives us pleasure by triggering an innate process in your brain via dopamine and opioid signals. most people stand to reap major improvements in their health by cutting back on, or eliminating, sugar altogether from their diets. Remember foods that contain added sugar and fructose, as well as grains like bread and pasta, should all be limited.If you're struggling with sugar addiction and having trouble dealing with cravings, try psychotherapy. 

8. Eat Healthy FatsBy healthy, this means not only mon- and polyunsaturated fats, like that found in avocadoes and nuts, but also saturated, as these are essential for building testosterone. 

9.The ideal diet includes somewhere between 50-70 percent fat.It's important to understand that your body requires saturated fats from animal and vegetable sources (such as meat, dairy, certain oils, and tropical plants like coconut) for optimal functioning, and if you neglect this important food group in favor of sugar, grains and other starchy carbs, your health and weight are almost guaranteed to suffer.