How Does Drinking Alcohol Effect Diabetes and Raising Blood Sugars?
Small amounts of alcohol will not hinder your control over diabetes but there are some precautions that diabetics should take to make sure that alcohol can be safely enjoyed. If you are diabetic and are currently treated with either tablets or insulin the main risk that you face with consuming alcohol is that alcohol could make you more prone to hypoglycemia. Despite how I feel this morning after getting wasted last night.
Hypoglycemia, which most diabetics already know, is when your blood sugar level drops down to an unsafe level.
The problem is, how is someone going to tell if you are experiencing hypoglycemia or if you are just drunk? Many of the early warning signs of hypoglycemia are mimicked by alcohol. Your friends may not seek help for you until you lose consciousness and maybe not even at that point. Come on, you’ve never seen anybody pass out drunk? Sometimes beer and diabetes don’t mix.
Another problem with a Diabetic consuming alcohol is that if done on a regular basis it can cause you to gain weight. Gaining weight while battling diabetes is pretty much the opposite of what you need to be doing. Weight gain is going to cause a diabetic to lose control over their disease.
Let’s not forget that when you are drunk your judgment could become impaired. This impaired judgment could lead to you eating a whole bunch of things you shouldn’t be eating. Oh, I don’t know, say you’re out on the town and before you know it…last call. Next thing you know you are stumbling into a sub shop that’s open late and stuffing your face with a foot long sub. Not good.
Moderation, awareness and good judgment are key when a diabetic is consuming alcohol. It’s good to remember that just because you may be out having a grand old time doesn’t mean that you are taking a vacation from your diabetes.
You still need to be checking your blood sugar levels and being very aware of any early signs that something is not right.
As for the moderation piece, experts consider a sensible drinking limit to be about 3 alcoholic drinks per day. So 21 per week. Here’s my question: Can you save up all of your daily drinks for consumption on Saturday night? Joking…kind of.
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Comments
If you do a google search on moderate drinking you will see source after source list 3 drinks per day as a moderate level of drinking.
Thanks for reading.
Hello.
Your article is very useful and many diabetics and non-diabetics can benefit from it. It’s a great pity that many cold-hearted people do not care of someone lying on the ground and maybe having an alcohol intoxication or a hypoglycaemia.
By the way - three alcoholic drinks per day is far too much. It is recommended to consume about 0 - 20g (men) and 0 - 14g (women) per day. This is because men require more alcohol than women to achieve the same blood alcohol content. The more you drink, the greater the risk of developing serious problems such as liver disease.
Michael
Does anyone know if drinking beer can raise the blood alcohol content in an inslin dependent diabetic? Or can insulin raise the BAC of someone? Thanks.
Dede, yes it could with some people but most will see a slight to moderate drop in sugars. I personally know that if I stick to domestic beers I’m ok. Hard alcohol and practically any shots will raise it up significantly.
I’ve never heard of Insulin raising BAC but I’m searching now to see if I can find anything about that.
Ken — thanks so much for getting back to me. I’m really trying to see if someone’s BAC can be incorrect due to their being an insulin diabetic — e.g. if your bs is high, can this be translated into a higher BAC (or if this could happen with a low bs). Many thanks.
I would like to know which kind of alcohol may we as diabetics may consume. I would also like to know the reactions of it in your body besides being drunk(after many drinks).
Thanks.
Hi, I would like to know which drinks may I consume in order to keep my sugar levels okay.
Thank you.
Hi JMR, any alcohol we consume isn’t going to be good for us. It’s the amount that we take in that will determine how much damage it does.
I’ve read that 1 glass of wine of beer a day is ok but anymore starts to get into a dangerous situation.
I am not actually suffering from this terrible disease, however, my brother and many of my customers do (I am a bartender) and one of them asked me what kind of vodka they are able to drink, because they had heard this certain vodka was suppose to be like rye whiskey. It is thought around here that drinking rye whiskey with, say water or diet cola, is alright for diabetics. I told him I would do some research for him and get back to him. Well, little did I know what I was undertaking, and it has been only a few hours. I have found many things. One, a shot of vodka a day, may help in avoiding type II. Two, drinking two drinks for men and one drink for women, of liquor or dry wines is not bad. Liqueurs and sweet wines are bad. Three, all liquors are the same because the distilling process removes the sugars(carbohydrates) from the solution, and it is the mixers you have to worry about. Four, liver shuts down glucose production while processing alcohol. So, now I am confused and concerned, I would like to be able to give my customer an honest answer, but also a correct answer. This would also help me to provide better service to all customers that do happen by the place I work. If you could help to correct anything I found wrong, give me more insight, or guide me to more websites it would greatly be accepted since I am just now starting my experience with this affliction.
with thanks,
clarke
[...] to the article, these dogs seem to sense a dangerous drop in blood glucose before it begins, allowing the people they work with to prevent an episode altogether. Some dogs [...]
My husband is type 2, can someone tell me. If he has a number of beers, about 2 days later (while eating as he should) his blood sugar goes up to the mid 200’s. Has anyone ever heard of this….whats up
Here’s one link for the 3 drinks per day:
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/140/3/I-72
Most countries recommend 2 - 3 as the daily limit (except France, they show 5 as the max).
By the way, here is the relevant quote from the article link above (the authors are basically summarizing information obtained from 32 separate studies on the topic):
“Some findings related to developing diabetes. Nondrinkers and people who drank more than 3 drinks per day had the highest risk for diabetes. People who had one to 3 drinks a day had a lower risk. Other findings applied to patients who have diabetes. Moderate drinking (one to 3 drinks per day) did not have an important effect on blood sugar levels in patients with diabetes. However, this finding may not apply to all patients because the studies were done under special test conditions that differ from normal daily life. Heart disease was less common in people with diabetes who drank moderate amounts of alcohol than in those who did not.”
My arm falls asleep alot and i get chest pains alot. I also have a cold and a dry mouth. I am not sure if these are symptoms of diebetes but its been a around for a while now. A couple times I have almost fallen over cause i was walking and got dizzy. It hasnt happened for a week or so but im curious if this might be an effect of diebetes.
Hello. I was just wondering which resource lists experts to consider 3 drinks a day moderate?
Thanks