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Dysglycemia

If blood sugar levels remain too high the body suppresses appetite over the short term. Long-term hyperglycemia causes many health problems including heart disease, cancer,^[5] eye, kidney, and nerve damage.^[6]

Blood sugar levels above 300 mg/dL can cause fatal reactions. Ketones will be very high (a magnitude higher than when eating a very low carbohydrate diet) initiating ketoacidosis. The Mayo Clinic recommends emergency room treatment above 300 mg/dL blood glucose.

The most common cause of hyperglycemia is diabetes. When diabetes is the cause, physicians typically recommend an anti-diabetic medication as treatment. From the perspective of the majority of patients, treatment with an old, well-understood diabetes drug such as metformin will be the safest, most effective, least expensive, most comfortable route to managing the condition.^[7] Diet changes and exercise implementation may also be part of a treatment plan for diabetes.

Hypoglycemia is a fall in blood sugar to levels below normal.^[8] This may result in a variety of symptoms including clumsiness, trouble talking, confusion, loss of consciousness, seizures or death.^[8] A feeling of hunger, sweating, shakiness and weakness may also be present.^[8] Symptoms typically come on quickly.^[8]

The most common cause of hypoglycemia is medications used to treat diabetes mellitus such as insulin and sulfonylureas.^[9][10] Risk is greater in diabetics who have eaten less than usual, exercised more than usual or have drunk alcohol.^[8] Other causes of hypoglycemia include kidney failure, certain tumors (such as insulinoma), liver disease, hypothyroidism, starvation, inborn error of metabolism, severe infections, reactive hypoglycemia and a number of drugs including alcohol.^[8][10] Low blood sugar may occur in otherwise healthy babies who have not eaten for a few hours.^[11]