Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, can cause sweating, shaking, dizziness, confusion, anxiety, and increased heart rate. These are also the symptoms one can experience under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs.
This similarity of symptoms can make one look drunk when they are actually experiencing hypoglycemia and may also give a false positive on a DUI breath test, resulting in an arrest under Nevada DUI laws. Wondering how low blood sugar can give a false positive on a breath test? Read on for a detailed discussion to develop a better understanding and to know how to deal with this situation if and when it arises.
What is Hypoglycemia?
Hypoglycemia is when your blood sugar level drops below the standard range.
Given that glucose is our body’s primary energy source, the drop in its level produces a range of uncomfortable symptoms, often leaving the person unable to function. Hypoglycemia should be addressed quickly, or it may pose a threat to life.
What Causes Hypoglycemia?
There can be several causes of hypoglycemia, but its most common and greatest risk is diabetes.
In a healthy body, the pancreas produces a hormone called insulin to transport glucose from the blood to the cells and tissues. This ensures the cells have the energy to perform their functions and prevents spikes in blood sugar levels. Diabetes disrupts this natural mechanism. The disease can reduce the efficiency of insulin by lowering or completely stopping its production in the body, making many people dependent on medicinal insulin and predisposed to hypoglycemia.
A higher dose of external insulin can drop the blood sugar levels lower than the standard range, causing hypoglycemia.
Inadequate consumption of carbohydrates can also put people at risk of developing hypoglycemia. The risk is higher in people with diabetes, but it can happen to anyone. Healthy people, however, take longer to become hypoglycemic than those with diabetes.
The lifestyle factors that can pose the risk of hypoglycemia include low-carb diets, malnutrition due to strict diets or starvation, fasting, and rigorous workouts without adequate carb intake.
Apart from diabetes, a few other health conditions may also increase your risk of developing hypoglycemia. This includes diseases or disorders of the pancreas, liver, and adrenal glands.
Although less common, eating a carb-heavy meal can also sometimes cause hypoglycemia from a sudden natural spike in insulin that it causes. The condition is called postprandial hypoglycemia or reactive hypoglycemia, and its symptoms are similar to that of a mild overdose of insulin.
How Can Hypoglycemia Make You Look Drunk?
As mentioned earlier, many of the symptoms hypoglycemia causes are similar to the ones experienced when under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Both make you look pale, feel shaky, cause increased and/or irregular heartbeat, dizziness, and sweating, and reduce your capability or efficiency to perform various tasks.
This similarity of symptoms can make you look drunk when you’re actually experiencing hypoglycemia.
Furthermore, someone experiencing diabetic ketoacidosis – a condition that causes excessive buildup of acids in the blood – may also appear to have alcohol impairment. Since law enforcement personnel aren’t health experts, they can easily get confused between the two conditions and mistake someone undergoing diabetic ketoacidosis for driving under the influence.
If you’re pulled over by the Police when you’re hypoglycemic, they may suspect you to be driving under the influence and require you to undergo the Nevada DUI breath test to confirm. But the test can sometimes do you more harm than good in the hypoglycemic condition by giving a false positive result.
How Can Low Blood Sugar Give a False Positive on a DUI Breath Test?
When the body is undergoing hypoglycemia, it starts to burn stored fat to produce energy to keep going.
The process of fat breakdown takes place in the liver and involves the production of ketone bodies that, in the absence of glucose, serve as the fuel source for the body. When the liver makes ketones from fat, the process releases isopropyl alcohol as a byproduct.
Normally, the body excretes isopropyl alcohol through breath and urine, along with excess ketones. However, it can give your breath an alcohol-like fruity smell.
Moreover, in certain situations where the excretion of isopropyl alcohol fails to keep up with its production (when the body makes more isopropyl alcohol than it can excrete), it can show up as blood alcohol on a breath test.
Although isopropyl alcohol is different from the type found in alcoholic beverages (ethyl alcohol), the devices that law enforcement personnel use for DUI breath tests in Nevada sometimes fail to differentiate between the two and give a false positive.
What to Do If You Test Positive on Nevada DUI Breath Test Due to Hypoglycemia?
A positive DUI breath test can get you arrested, but an experienced DUI lawyer in Nevada can get you released and help you avoid being convicted of DUI.
At The Bourassa Law Group we have a team of professional Las Vegas DUI lawyers with extensive industry experience to help you refute the claims and prove that you were falsely accused of DUI due to hypoglycemia. If you are facing charges for drunk driving in Nevada, contact us today for a free consultation. We’d be happy to assist you through the legal process and prove your innocence.