Q & A archive—Reactive Hypoglycemia

Question: My wife has spells of very fast heart beat which lasts from only a few minutes to an hour or two. What can be done about it?

Answer: This is a very common problem with patients who have a condition known as Reactive Hypoglycemia. It means that at certain times of the day or night the patient’s blood sugar drops too low and triggers excessive production of adrenaline which is a nervous system stimulant which causes the excessive stimulation of the heart which results in the rapid heart beat. If this is the cause of the problem, the answer is quite simple—correct the hypoglycemic problem. This problem is generally found in people who eat excessive amounts of refined sugar foods—cake, pie, cookies, candy, soft drinks etc. So the answer to the basic problem is to stop eating the sugars that are the cause of the problem. In this case the B vitamins are very important because they are vitamins which nourish the nervous system, so I generally use a 50 mg. B Complex capsule once or twice a day.

Another problem that is very frequently found with this condition is a deficiency of magnesium. Magnesium is the mineral I refer to in my book “Letters to my Patients” as the Five Cent Miracle Tablet. The electrical conductivity of the heart is controlled largely by magnesium. So I usually give these patients 500mg. to 1000 mg. of magnesium depending on their needs. Sometimes the deficiencies are so great that I use intravenous magnesium as well as oral for a more reliable and rapid effect.

Usually, with the corrections of the above problems, the rapid heat beat spells (paroxysmal tachycardia) are alleviated within a week or two.

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