What Causes High and
Low Blood Sugar Levels?

What causes high and low blood sugar levels will vary from person to person. In fact, blood sugar levels go up and they come down. As long as the level is within a normal range, who really cares? Well, no one really cares. Instead, the big problem for diabetics are the extremes, when the level gets too low or too high.

High Blood Sugar Causes

High blood sugar, also known as hyperglycemia, is usually caused by one or more of the following:

• Over eating and ingesting too many calories
• Infections
• Stress
• Sickness
• Eating too many carbohydrates (generally and/or not in proportion with your insulin dosage)
• Lack of exercise
• Missing insulin dosage or other glucose related medications

Good diabetes management is critical to controlling high blood sugar before problems arise.

Low Blood Sugar Causes

The causes of low blood sugar, also known as hypoglycemia, are another matter. This is a fairly rare condition for adults with diabetes. Typically, low blood sugar is a result of a side effect of insulin or other prescription medications. For example, the following medications are known to have caused low blood sugar:

• chlorpropamide (Diabinese)
• glimepiride (Amaryl)
• glipizide (Glucotrol, Glucotrol XL)
• glyburide (DiaBeta, Glynase, Micronase)
• nateglinide (Starlix)
• repaglinide (Prandin)
• sitagliptin (Januvia)
• tolazamide
• tolbutamide
• glipizide and metformin (Metaglip)
• glyburide and metformin (Glucovance)
• pioglitazone and glimepiride (Duetact)
• rosiglitazone and glimepiride (Avandaryl)
• sitagliptin and metformin (Janumet)

Other medications, including certain combinations can also be a problem. What's the treatment for hypoglycemia? Click the link to learn more.

Hopefully, this simplified overview of high and low blood sugar causes will be helpful as you work to control your glucose levels.