Originally Posted by
BearX220
Maybe good enough for NBC Nightly News but not for me. This is all secondhand hearsay or relayed rumor. And I know from firsthand experience that a diabetic having a sugar crisis can look and sound as drunk as drunk gets.
Maybe the reason this story has had no media profile (and they are usually eager to pile on stuff like this) is that it could not be substantiated.
Diabetes is definitely one of the medical issues that can be mistaken for intoxication - whether blood sugar is too low or too high.
Adding to your comment (that I bolded above), when someone has diabetic ketoacidosis from markedly elevated blood glucose levels, they can develop an unusual, fruity odor to the breath from the high levels of ketones.
This is an odor that untrained lay people can - and often do - mistake for the odor of alcohol on a person's breath.