MINNEAPOLIS — They are two feelings that just seem to go hand-in-hand: hunger and anger. But why do we get hangry?
It’s is a relatively new word — the Oxford English Dictionary made it official in 2015.
But’s it’s a feeling most of us have always known.
For Dr. Ann Kearns, it’s a lived experience and a scientific one.
The longtime Mayo Clinic physician is now an endocrinologist at the Hennepin County Medical Center.
She says it’s complicated, “Oh, it’s a question if it’s a solely biological thing or a learned behavior, and that’s the $60,000 question. There is something about food and appetite that effects our behavior that we don’t completely understand but is it real — yes, is it related to a specific hormone profile, that’s a little harder to sort out.”
What about the phrase people often say, “my blood sugar is low”? She explains, “Yeah, probably not. Is it a pathological drop into the medically defined hypoglycemia range, not usually.”