Does Type 2 Diabetes Mean You Have High Or Low Blood Sugar?
Posted in Definition on 27. Feb, 2010
Im a nursing student and im sort of confused. My teacher gave us a paper titled “HYPOglycemic drugs Indicated for Type 2 diabetes”
One of the drugs listed is Glucophage.
For glucophage it says it decrease glucose production in the liver, but wouldn’t you want that if you were a HYPERglycemic and not Hypoglycemic?
I’m in med school, and your teacher is right. The class of drugs you give to a diabetic are called hypoglycemic drugs because they INDUCE hypoglycemia in the patient.
Type II diabetes means that your body is not sensitive enough to the insulin it produces causing your glucose levels to rise.
Metformin or Glucophage is indicated for hyperglycemic patients. By decreasing the glucose manufactured by the liver, there are lower levels of glucose that the circulating insulin has to contend with.
Your Nursing instructor probably made a typographical error and meant HYPERglycemia.
I would tactfully ask her if this was an error.
Hypoglycemia: Too high a concentration of glucose
produced by the liver.
As a type 2 diabetic I am on Glucophage to combat the high glucose output of my liver. As I understand it, too high an output can also damage your kidneys for which I am on another medication to protect them.
Hyperglycemia: An abnormal and high presense of glucose
in the blood.
Type 2 diabetes means the patient has HYPERglycemia-high blood glucose(sugar). Hypoglycemic drugs are used to treat Type 2 diabetes. The drugs have a hypoglecimic effect meaning they lower blood glucose. Glucophage(metformin) is an example of a hypoglycemic drug-a drug used to reduce blood glucose in a diabetic suffering from hyperglycemia.