Excerpt from "SUGAR SHOCK! How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life -- And How You Can Get Back on Track"

(Berkley Books, Jan. 2007)

Excerpt from Chapter 13: It Might Not Be “All in Your Head”: What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know or Believe About Hypoglycemia

"Bipolar II with psychotic episodes." That's the diagnosis a psychiatrist handed Stephanie B. of Chico, California, when she was 23 years old.

By the time a psychiatric hospital rendered the "bipolar" verdict, Stephanie had spent a decade trying to pinpoint the cause of her depression, mania, panic attacks, anxiety, fatigue, temper outbursts, excitability, psychotic-like episodes, confusion, concentration problems, and headaches. These symptoms disabled her so thoroughly that at times she couldn't get out of bed and she had to drop out of school four times.

Physicians, psychologists, and psychiatrists were particularly mystified by Stephanie's strange, scary panic attacks -- like the time when, after skipping a meal and rushing to a physics class, her legs wouldn't budge and she felt stuck in the deep end of a swimming hole. Or the incident when she started to hyperventilate while driving down a six-lane highway, developed "extreme tunnel vision," and had to pull over to avoid collision with an oncoming car.

Doctors prescribed medications to help her cope -- a litany of drugs that reads like a pharmacology manual: Zoloft, Depakote, Risperidol, Imipramine, Klonopin, BuSpar, Paxil, Trazodone, Ativan, and Ambien. But the meds helped to bring about another problem. In a year and a half, the 5-foot, 10-inch Stephanie ballooned from "anorexic looking" to 215 pounds.

Curiously, not one in the succession of doctors she saw ever asked Stephanie about her diet, which included many inferior, fiber-stripped, nutrient-poor, empty-calorie dessert foods and processed carbs and starches such as pasta, corn tortillas, corn chips, blueberry muffins, sweet rolls, cookies, smoothies, croissants, pizza, and bagels.

On several occasions, she even asked her doctors if she had a blood sugar problem. "I'd explain that if I didn't eat at crucial moments in my day, I'd turn irritable and get a devastating headache. But the doctors paid no attention," she recalls. "Once in a while, they'd give me a blood sugar test right then -- when I wasn't having any symptoms -- and, of course, my results would come back normal."

Meanwhile, as her twenties slipped by, Stephanie's distress continued, especially near that time of the month. "I was putting everything down to PMS," she says. "I'd have horrible mood swings, cramps, bloating, and migraines for a week out of every cycle. One day, I got so upset with my husband that I slapped him across the face for no reason."…

Finally, in 2002, just before her 31st birthday, after some 20 years of anguish and agony, Stephanie learned the cause of her problems, but not from a medical doctor. Instead, a nutritionally savvy acupuncturist who'd been treating her for a dog bite suspected that Stephanie might have reactive hypoglycemia or low blood sugar caused by her diet high in sugars and refined carbs.

Almost immediately, Stephanie stopped eating processed carbs and deserts. Instead she had meals and snacks with protein, healthy fats, vegetables, some low-sugar fruits, and whole grains. Within days, her health dramatically improved.

"Eating right banished all my symptoms including depression and mood swings," she marvels. "It even helped me get rid of my constant hunger and excess weight. And I've discovered a whole new world of tasty, healthy foods."

THE GREAT IMMITATOR

Stephanie's story is not so unusual. Quite the opposite.

In fact, I believe, as do a number of medical experts, that reactive hypoglycemia is one of the most common and misunderstood disorders in America today. For starters, many physicians assume that ailments such as mood swings, fatigue, and anxiety are manifestations of psychological problems.

Moreover, hypoglycemia has been called the "Great Imitator" because its strange, startling symptoms -- some experts list as many as 125 of them -- can mimic a frightening array of diseases and conditions, including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, neurosis, migraines, Parkinson's syndrome, chronic bronchial asthma, paroxysmal tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), rheumatoid arthritis, cerebral arteriosclerosis (hardening of the brain's arteries), menopause, mental retardation, alcoholism, hyperactive disorder, and senility.

Given the vast array of symptoms and the confusion they can generate, doctors often shrug away patients' complaints as the imaginings of a hypochondriac in dire need of psychiatric help.

…Obviously, not all patients with anxiety, depression, heart palpitations, migraines, and other symptoms have hypoglycemia -- they could have other very real conditions -- but if they do have low blood sugar, it can be a revelation and relief to learn about it.