Sugar Could Prevent Malaria-Associated Hypoglycemia Among Children, Study Says

A teaspoon of moistened sugar under the tongue could help prevent hypoglycemia among children with malaria, Hubert Barennes, a French physician at the Francophone Institute of Tropical Medicine in Laos, said Thursday, AFP/Google.com reports. Children who contract malaria often experience a rapid drop in blood sugar, which can cause death if the child is unable to access a clinic to obtain intravenous glucose, the standard treatment for hypoglycemia. To address this situation, Barennes began experimenting with sugar treatments in Niger in the late 1990s. Although he initially encountered difficulty obtaining funding for clinical trials, Barennes in 2006 led a team of about 12 researchers to examine the use of sublingual sugar to prevent malaria-associated hypoglycemia.

For the study, the researchers assigned 23 children with severe malaria and extremely low glucose levels to two groups. The first group received intravenous glucose, while the second group received a small amount of moistened sugar under the tongue every 20 minutes. The study found that sublingual sugar was just as effective as intravenous glucose in preventing hypoglycemia, despite cases in which children swallowed the sugar instead of letting it dissolve, thus reducing the treatment's effectiveness. Although the study was performed in busy field conditions with a relatively small sample size, the researchers maintain that the findings "indicate sufficient safety and efficacy to justify the use of sublingual (under the tongue) sugar at the community level and to justify a larger trial."

According to AFP/Google.com, malaria-related hypoglycemia particularly affects children because they have fewer reserves to combat the condition when sugar levels decline. The researchers noted that sublingual sugar could be used to treat hypoglycemia cases associated with conditions other than malaria, including malnutrition and poisoning. In addition, Barennes said there is a "good chance" that sublingual sugar could be an effective treatment for adults, although further research would be necessary (AFP/Google.com, 2/19).