In the past, doctors often advised people with reactive hypoglycaemia to drink a cup of sweet tea, or suck sweets or glucose tablets, whenever they felt the symptoms coming on. This may relieve the symptoms temporarily, but in the long term it just perpetuates the problem. The influx of sugar will simply stimulate the body to produce more insulin, and so make matters worse.

People who are overweight and eat a lot of starchy or sugary food may suffer from reactive hypoglycaemia on a daily basis. Their body cells become more responsive to insulin, because they have to cope with such a high glucose load, so they easily become hypoglycaemic, especially if they miss out on one of their usual sugary snacks. Simply changing their diet will help such people, although they may find it quite difficult to wean themselves off the high-sugar diet that their body has become accustomed to. They should eat more meat, fish, eggs, cheese and vegetables, and cut out sugar and honey entirely. White flour and bread should be replaced by wholemeal, since this is digested more slowly and does not release a lot of glucose at once. Even so, the amount of bread, pastry and potatoes should be restricted, and no cakes, biscuits, sweets, puddings or jam must be eaten. If there is an improvement, then some sweet foods can be reintroduced to the diet later, once the body has regained its natural equilibrium.

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