Am J Psychiatry 1976; 133:290-294
Copyright © 1976 by American Psychiatric Association
A psychiatric study of patients referred with a diagnosis of hypoglycemia
CV Ford, GA Bray and RS Swerdloff
Five-hour oral glucose tolerance tests (GTTs) differentiated 30 volunteer
patients who considered themselves hypoglycemic into three major groups:
those who had reactive hypoglycemia, those who were normal, and those who
had diabetes. Clinical psychiatric evaluation and Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory testing revealed that half of the 30 patients were
experiencing a current psychiatric disorder, usually depression. Hysterical
personality traits were also noted in many of the patients. The idea that
reactive hypoglycemic patients have specific personality characteristics
was not substantiated by the authors' data. They hypothesize that some
patients with psychiatric illness may have their symptoms erroneously
attributed to incidental GTT findings.
