My Diabetes Information Blogs
Diabetes and Winter are Recipe for Hypoglycemia
12/21/07
Disease Basics
Jill L. Quarry's career is diabetes. She sees dozens of diabetic patients each week and she notices the subtleties that affect their lives. This week she posted a column, The Medical Minute: Diabetics need to be prepared for snow, in which she points out how winter time activities can create problems for people with diabetes.
Activities such as shoveling snow use your blood sugar quickly. Without the proper calories on board your blood sugar could drop too low—hypoglycemia.
The extra effort required to get around in the snow and the extra energy your body uses to stay warm also use up calories from the last meals you ate. Your body will also tap into its sugar stores in your muscles, and call upon your liver to start making sugar.
The problem, hypoglycemia, occurs when your sugar stores run out, or if your body cannot process the sugar fast enough.
Review Quarry's article so that you will know how to plan for winter activities, recognize hypoglycemia, and treat low blood sugar episodes.