Low blood sugar doesn't affect mental faculties

A drop in the blood sugar levels, called hypoglycaemia, severe enough to cause seizures or coma in young children with type 1 diabetes does not affect mental ability or behaviour.Among children with type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes, those who develop the disease very early in life have shown signs of decline in mental abilities. Young children with type 1 diabetes are at greatest risk of severe hypoglycaemic events, and this has focused concern on the potential for hypoglycaemic insult to affect central nervous system development. There is some evidence that the region of the brain called the hippocampus is particularly sensitive to prolonged episodes of severe hypoglycaemia.Researchers from the Princess Margaret Hospital, Australia, compared 41 juvenile diabetic children and adolescents who had a history of hypoglycaemia with seizure or coma to 43 similar diabetic subjects without a history of severe hypoglycaemic events. A subgroup of patients who had a first seizure at an earlier age - at younger than 6 years of age - had more episodes of hypoglycaemic seizures or coma compared with those who experienced a seizure at an older age.The team conducted a comprehensive series of learning and memory tests, as well as intellectual and behavioural tests and observed no significant differences between the seizure and non-seizure groups on the intellectual, memory or behavioural measures. The number of severe hypoglycaemic events was also not significantly correlated with the memory, intellectual, and behavioural scores. Also, no difference was found between the early first seizure subgroup and non-seizure group, even on those delayed recall tasks studied specifically, given the concern about the potential impact of hypoglycaemia on memory function. The above results provide some reassurance to doctors treating children with type 1 diabetes with intensive treatment that seizures/coma at a young age does not necessarily result in gross cognitive or behavioural impairment.