Are Carbohydrate Intolerance and Hypoglycemia the same thing?
No. Carbohydrate Intolerance is typified by diarrhoea and abdominal distension caused by inability to digest carbohydrates because of a lack of one or more intestinal enzymes. Some people may use the term ‘intolerance’ if they feel their hypoglycemia is not very bad. From the Merk Manual “Pathophysiology Disaccharides normally are split into monosaccharides by lactase, maltase, isomaltase, or sucrase (invertase) in the small bowel. Unsplit disaccharides remain in the lumen and osmotically retain fluid, causing diarrhea and abdominal distention. Bacterial fermentation of sugar in the colon leads to gaseous, acidic stools. Because the enzymes are located in the brush border of mucosal cells, secondary enzymatic deficiencies occur in diseases that lead to morphologic alterations of the jejunal mucosa (eg, celiac disease, tropical sprue, acute intestinal infections, neomycin toxicity). In infants, temporary secondary disaccharidase deficiency may complicate enteric infections or abdominal
