Meaning & use
hyperglycemia
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Meaning
noununcountablemedical
A condition in which there is too much sugar in the blood, most often a sign of diabetes.
Grammar: A condition name used without an or the: patients with hyperglycemia.
Patterns
- suffer from hyperglycemia
Untreated diabetes can cause hyperglycemia and lead to serious problems.
Thirst and frequent urination are common signs of hyperglycemia.
The nurse checked her glucose to see whether hyperglycemia was the cause.
Common combinations
- develop hyperglycemia
- Some patients develop hyperglycemia during illness.
- treat hyperglycemia
- Doctors treat hyperglycemia with insulin or diet changes.
- symptoms of hyperglycemia
- Blurred vision can be one of the symptoms of hyperglycemia.
- prevent hyperglycemia
- Regular exercise helps prevent hyperglycemia.
- chronic hyperglycemia
- Chronic hyperglycemia can damage nerves over time.
Synonyms and how they differ
- high blood sugar
- High blood sugar is the everyday way to say the same thing, while hyperglycemia is the clinical term.
- glucose excess
- Glucose excess is a rare descriptive phrase, not a standard diagnosis.
Opposites
Word family
- hyperglycemic adjective
- relating to or having high blood sugar
- glycemia noun
- the level of sugar in the blood
- hypoglycemia noun
- low blood sugar
- glucose noun
- a simple sugar used for energy
Commonly confused: hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia?
hyperglycemia vs hypoglycemia
Hypoglycemia is too little sugar in the blood. Hyper- means over, hypo- means under, so the two are opposites.
Practice
A person whose blood glucose stays much too high is said to have ___.
Choose one answer.
Hyperglycemia is high blood sugar. Hypoglycemia is low blood sugar, anemia is too few red cells, and hypertension is high blood pressure.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hyperglycemia”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.