Hormonal
Insulin-dependent diabetes (IDDM) and repeated hypoglycemia impair brain glucose sensing, leading to defective counterregulatory responses and hypoglycemia unawareness.
If you have type 1 diabetes, frequent low blood sugar episodes can damage your brain's ability to sense glucose and trigger the body's natural defense mechanisms (counterregulation). This leads to 'hypoglycemia unawareness,' where you don't feel the warning signs of a low. To protect your brain's sensing ability, it is critical to avoid repeated hypoglycemic episodes, even if it means accepting slightly higher average glucose levels.
Finally, tight control of patients with IDDM is associated with repeated episodes of hypoglycemia and this leads to defective brain glucose sensing. Even a single bout of hypoglycemia reduces both the awareness of and the counterregulatory response to hypoglycemia.
Why this rating
Review paper citing clinical and animal studies on IDDM and hypoglycemia.
Source
Brain glucose sensing and body energy homeostasis: role in obesity and diabetes
Barry E. Levin et al. · American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology · 1999
DOI 10.1152/ajpregu.1999.276.5.r1223
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