Two weeks ago, the National Health Research Institutes discovered that children with severe enterovirus infections had also been found to have hyperglycemia or high blood sugar.
As such, they inferred that people with enterovirus should avoid eating sugary foods.
Although the research on the prevention of severe symptoms is commendable, the underlying cause has not been fully identified.
Researchers hastily announced that families should not allow their kids to consume sugar while fighting off an enterovirus infection, and that they could be unexpectedly harmed.
For the most part, enterovirus infections present with mild symptoms, and those who are hospitalized can easily be dehydrated due to fever, vomiting, a refusal to eat due to mouth ulcers, electrolyte imbalance or low blood sugar.
The current standard of treatment is for an infected person to stay at home and replenish their electrolytes and fluids.
For example, the WHO recommends drinking electrolytes with a sugar content of 90 millimoles per liter.
The Centers for Disease Control suggests eating pudding or, if at an emergency clinic, to receive an intravenous drip. Both of these recommendations incorporate the ingestion of sugar.
The research team was unclear about its definition of “sweets” or “sweetened foods” when they made their announcement, creating some confusion that has led to inappropriate care by some families of people with mild symptoms, resulting in hypoglycemic shock or severe dehydration.
The reasoning is murky for “non-diabetic hyperglycemia” causing severe enterovirus symptoms.
Studies are leaning toward people with severe symptoms sometimes having excessive secretions of stress hormones such as cortisone, adrenaline and glucagon, which can cause temporary hyperglycemia.
Between hyperglycemia and severe symptoms, how do we determine which is the cause and which is the effect? Conclusions are being drawn at an unclear stage.
Promoting the idea that eating sweet foods leads to severe symptoms is unfortunately resulting in parents feeling uneasy, doctors administering clinical treatments without a factual basis and the inadvertent harming of kids.
Lin Sung-lien is a pediatrician at the Children’s Clinical Center in Keelung.
Translated by Tim Smith
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