Objective: To determine the cause of hyperglycemia in childhood diarrhea.

Methods: During an 8-month period, patients admitted to a diarrhea treatment center in Bangladesh had their blood glucose concentrations determined. Sixteen patients aged 2 to 10 years with hyperglycemia (blood glucose concentration >10.0 mmol/L) and 20 patients in the same age group with a normal blood glucose concentration (3.3 to 9.0 mmol/L) had blood samples obtained on admission and 4 and 24 hours later for determination of glucoregulatory hormones and gluconeogenic substrates.

Results: Prevalence of hyperglycemia among patients aged 2 to 10 years was 9.4%. Compared with the normoglycemic patients, hyperglycemic patients more often had severe dehydration (100% versus 10%, p <0.001), infection with Vibrio cholerae 01 or toxigenic Escherichia coli (94% vs 25%, p <0.001), and had similar duration of fasting (16 vs 14 hours, p = 0.677). Concentrations of epinephrine (7.15 vs 2.00 μmol/L), norepinephrine (10.35 vs 3.50 μmol/L), cortisol (1.38 vs 0.82μmol/L), glucagon (36 vs 14 pmol/L), and C-peptide (1.22 vs 0.35 nmol/L) wereall significantly ( p ≤0.014) higher in patients with hyperglycemia than in normoglycemic patients.

Conclusions: The development of hyperglycemia in diarrhea is caused by a stress response to hypovolemia. (J Pediatr 1997;130:45-51)