Hypoglycima and the brain

[bishnu]

I am a type 1 diabetic and have been one for about a year and a half now. I am able to keep pretty good control of my diabeties and have an average hypoglycimic a1c of about 5.7. Of course, intensive treatment cause many "lows" or hypoglycimic events. The lowest i have ever been is 38 and i have been to 40 about 4-5 times. Now my question is do repeated low blood sugars cause permeant brain damage. I have read that if you have exceeded the age of 8-9 you only have to worry about blood sugars of 1.5mmol/l and less(about 30mg/dl) for a prlonged period of time(but fail to give a quantive defintion of prolonged). Now i have never been that low but i have had repeated blodd sugars of less than 55 and been low enough to lose all of the classic signs hypoglycimia. I'm also curious to the mechanism of "killing" brain cells at low blood sugars o ther than starved for energy.

[Guest Viaggio]

I don't know the exact mech, but a dramatic decrease in raw fuel probably correlates to a decrease in ROS defense...followed by apoptosis.