What Causes Hypoglycemia?
Reactive Hypoglycemia: The Diet Connection
So why are we consuming mostly bleached, smooth white flour (almost always wheat, but more on that subject later) and refined sugar? What is this doing to our systems? I believe that the massive change in our diets over the past 100 years is the primary cause of the high incidence of heart disease, cancer and diabetes in the developed world.
Native populations of North America switched to a high grain diet much more recently than peoples of Europe did. The highest incidence of diabetes is in the indigenous populations of North America. Is it just coincidence that the native peoples of North America may be some hundreds of years behind in adapting to a diet comprised mostly of refined grains? The incidence of diabetes is also much higher in people of Hispanic, African, and Asian descent. Again, these are all groups that switched to a highly refined diet relatively recently.
In his 1975 book, The Saccharine Disease, T. L. CLEAVE, M.R.C.P., a retired surgeon with the British Royal Navy states that "twenty years after refined carbohydrates are adopted [into a culture] there is dramatic rise in dental caries, obesity, diabetes and heart disease, as well as in the diseases associated with low fiber intake including diverticulitis, varicose veins and hemorrhoids."
The addition of refined sugar is another major change in our diets in the past 100 years. Just after the beginning of the 21st century, the average North American eats over 100 pounds of sugar per year! That's a conservative estimate-some sources suggest that the real number is 160 pounds!
We have been taught that sugar's only adverse effect is on our teeth, and the solution to that is easy-brush your teeth. Other than that, sweets have more calories, so we just need to "cut down" if we need to lose weight. I used to think that, since we "run" on sugar, eating sugar just meant that my body didn't have to work for the calories that I got from my sugar. The truth is that sugar, in its conversion to glucose and glycogen, uses the resources of our bodies. The refinement process has removed all of the sugar cane's natural nutrients, so digestion of sugar uses those already stored in your body. Chromium, zinc, vitamin C, magnesium, calcium and B vitamins are all needed to digest sugar, and these have to be found in your body. This means that eating a lot of sugar can actually result in vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
Dr. Ahron Cohen showed that "rats secreted more insulin to control their blood sugar after 3 weeks of a diet containing 67% sugar, after 6 weeks at 40% sugar and 13 weeks at 33% sugar. The rats regained normal glucose tolerance after some time on a normal diet, but permanent damage was done because it took only days for impaired glucose tolerance to develop when sugar was given once more. In people, this effect causes the blood sugar to fall too low, leading to "reactive hypoglycemia".
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, so please don't use these articles to diagnose yourself. They are only intended to provide information.