Dawn phenomenon, sometimes called the dawn effect, is an early-morning (usually between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m.) increase in blood sugar (glucose) relevant to people with diabetes. It is different from Chronic Somogyi rebound in that dawn phenomenon is not associated with nocturnal hypoglycemia.
It is possible that dawn phenomenon is caused by the release of counterregulatory hormones such as growth hormone, cortisol, glucagon, or epinephrine, all of which can signal the liver to release glucose. Other causes may include insufficient insulin administration the night before, incorrect medication dosages, or eating carbohydrate snacks at bedtime.
Dawn phenomenon can be managed in many patients by avoiding carbohydrate intake at bedtime, adjusting the dosage of medication or insulin, switching to a different medication, or by using an insulin pump to administer extra insulin during early-morning hours. In most of the cases, there is no need to change insulin dosing of patients who encounter dawn phenomenon.
Famous quotes containing the words dawn and/or phenomenon:
“My weary limbs are scarcely stretched for repose, before red dawn peeps into my chamber window, and the birds in the whispering leaves over the roof, apprise me by their sweetest notes that another day of toil awaits me. I arise, the harness is hastily adjusted and once more I step upon the tread-mill.”
—“E. B.,” U.S. farmer. As quoted in Feminine Ingenuity, by Anne L. MacDonald (1992)
“If you could choose your parents,... we would rather have a mother who felt a sense of guilt—at any rate who felt responsible, and felt that if things went wrong it was probably her fault—we’d rather have that than a mother who immediately turned to an outside thing to explain everything, and said it was due to the thunderstorm last night or some quite outside phenomenon and didn’t take responsibility for anything.”
—D.W. Winnicott (20th century)