Hypoglycemia

Hypoglycemia is an abnormally low plasma glucose concentration and not a disease entity. With the exception of the effect of hypoglycemic drugs (insulins and sulfonylureas), hypoglycemia arises from an aberration in one or more mechanisms involved in glucose homeostasis. Progress in our knowledge of glucose homeostasis in the past decade and the development of radioimmunoassay for insulin, the primary hypoglycemic hormone, and C-peptide, a marker of insulin secretion, have facilitated both the understanding and diagnostic precision of hypoglycemic disorders.