Your body processes alcohol differently than most foods and beverages. You can reduce the carb and sugar content of a drink to a minimum by having it straight or mixing it with club soda, plain seltzer, diet soda, or a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime. Dessert wines contain considerably more sugar than other types of wine. The same is true of cocktails made with regular soda or mixers, simple syrup, and other types of added sugar, or fruit juice.
- LDL cholesterol levels tend to be lower in alcoholics than in nondrinkers (Castelli et al. 1977), suggesting that chronic alcohol consumption may have a beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk.
- This tends to lower your blood sugar while you’re drinking, especially if you’re not eating.
- The mechanisms underlying alcohol’s impact on blood pressure have not been fully elucidated.
Hypoglycemia
- In fact, insulin-resistant people have higher than normal insulin levels (i.e., are hyperinsulinemic1).
- The prefix “hyper-” always indicates higher than normal levels of a substance, whereas the prefix “hypo-” indicates lower than normal levels.
- The researchers found that the levels of vitamin E, an agent that in part is bound to LDL cholesterol and which may decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease, also are lower in alcoholics than in nonalcoholics.
- If levels are low enough, it may even cause seizures.
- Abstinence from alcohol generally leads to normalization of the triglyceride levels, unless the person has an underlying genetic predisposition for hypertriglyceridemia.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal agencies define that as one drink per day or less for women and two drinks per day or less for men. Certain types of alcohol are especially high in carbs and sugar, even if you drink them straight. And those with diabetes need to bring down elevated glucose levels.
Still, diabetes can make happy hour pretty confusing. After all, a daily drink does have its benefits. Perhaps some have health conditions that are incompatible with alcohol. Eating food when you drink can help stop this from happening. Alcohol isn’t off-limits if you have diabetes. They can tell you if alcohol might interfere with your medications or cause other health issues.
Alterations of Lipid Metabolism
Those findings suggest that alcohol consumption, particularly moderate what is end-stage alcoholism consumption, may have a protective effect against cardiovascular disease. However, substantial information on the association of alcohol and cardiovascular disease exists from population studies that included an unknown percentage of diabetics. Third, alcohol may enhance the increase in triglyceride levels in the blood that usually occurs after a meal. Alcohol can induce several types of lipid alterations, including elevated triglyceride levels in the blood (i.e., hypertriglyceridemia), reduced levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and elevated levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.
Can Alcohol Cause Diabetes?
Depending on your health condition, that may mean no alcohol at all. The prefix “hyper-” always indicates higher than normal levels of a substance, whereas the prefix “hypo-” indicates lower than normal levels. The latter findings, however, were obtained with populations that included diabetics as well as nondiabetics, thereby limiting researchers’ ability to apply those findings to diabetics.
Simple Snacks That Won’t Spike Your Blood Sugar
This way, if an emergency arises, medical personnel (who are trained to look for IDs) will know you have diabetes. Before heading out to a bar or restaurant where you plan to have a drink, put on your medical ID bracelet. If you don’t drink, there’s no reason to start. All alcohol contains about 7 calories per gram, which is more than carbohydrates (4 calories per gram) and only slightly less than fat (9 calories per gram).
The biggest concern is hypoglycemia (low blood glucose). Despite the potential health perks of drinking alcohol, there are some cautions as well. If you have one or more drinks a day, you may find that your A1C is lower than during times you weren’t drinking. If you never or rarely drink alcohol, you’re not alone—in fact, people with diabetes drink about half as much as other adults.
Effects of Alcohol on Diabetes
Blood glucose regulation by insulin in healthy people and in people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Insulin primarily serves to lower blood sugar levels by promoting the uptake of sugar (i.e., glucose) in the muscles and fat (i.e., adipose) tissue as well as the conversion of glucose into its storage form, glycogen. Two of the hormones (i.e., insulin and glucagon) are potent regulators of blood sugar levels.
Always test blood sugar before having an alcoholic beverage
As mentioned earlier in this article, poor food intake can lead to depleted glycogen levels. Under the influence of excess glucagon, some of the free fatty acids are converted to ketone bodies and secreted into the blood, causing severe health consequences. In patients with ketoacidosis, however, the liver metabolizes the incoming free fatty acids in an additional, unusual way. The liver normally re-incorporates free fatty acids into triglycerides, which are then packaged and secreted as part of a group of particles called very low-density lipoproteins (VLDL). Among their many functions, insulin and glucagon regulate the conversion of fat molecules (i.e., fatty acids) into larger molecules (i.e., triglycerides), which are stored in the fat tissue. Elevated levels of those compounds can cause nausea, vomiting, impaired mental functioning, coma, and even death.
Alcohol’s Effects on Blood Sugar Levels of Diabetics
The combination of alcohol-induced hypoglycemia, hypoglycemic unawareness, and delayed recovery from hypoglycemia can lead to deleterious health consequences. A person in a state of hypoglycemic unawareness, however, may not notice or recognize those warning signs and is therefore at increased risk of severe hypoglycemia. Alcohol metabolism in the liver, however, actually shuts down the process of gluconeogenesis and thus the second line of defense against hypoglycemia. Gluconeogenesis, which also occurs primarily in the liver, involves the formation of new glucose molecules from alanine and glycerol. Glycogen is a large molecule that consists of numerous glucose molecules and serves as a storage form of glucose in the tissues, particularly the liver.
Alcohol may dangerously lower blood sugar if you don’t eat or take diabetes medication. Make sure your blood glucose is at a safe level before you go to sleep. The more drinks you have at one time, the higher your risk.
Diabetes, Alcohol, and Social Drinking
Drinking alcohol carries the same health risks for people with diabetes as it does in otherwise healthy people. Some people who take oral diabetes medicines should talk with their provider to see if it is safe to drink alcohol. The risk for low blood sugar remains for hours after you take your last drink. As a result, your blood sugar level can drop quickly, putting you at risk for low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). After consuming alcohol, always check your blood glucose level to make sure it is in the safe zone.
It’s also best to have a meal or snack that includes carbohydrates when you are drinking alcohol. Talk with your doctor before drinking alcohol to make sure alcohol won’t reduce the effectiveness of your medication. But studies have found that drinking, especially heavy drinking, can increase your risk of having diabetes. Do not drink more than two drinks of alcohol in a day if you are a man or person assigned male at birth, or one drink if you are a woman or person assigned female at birth. This can make it difficult to tell if you’ve had too much to drink or if your blood sugar is dropping to dangerously low levels. When this happens, your blood sugar levels aren’t steady and can drop too low.
People with diabetes who choose to drink need to take extra care to keep food, medications, alcohol, and blood sugars in balance. Low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia, can be dangerous in people with diabetes. Moderate to heavy drinking also was more strongly linked to various stages of hypertension in people with type 2 diabetes. It’s important to be mindful when you’re drinking alcohol if you have diabetes. If you take insulin or certain types of diabetes medicine, it can cause seriously low blood sugar. Your liver releases glucose into your blood stream as needed to help keep your blood sugar at normal levels.
Accordingly, physicians who treat diabetics known to consume large amounts of alcohol must be aware of the risk of alcoholic ketoacidosis in those patients. Ketoacidosis typically occurs in patients with type 1 diabetes who completely lack insulin. In the absence of insulin, the triglycerides are broken down into free fatty acids, which are secreted into the bloodstream and delivered to the liver. Ketoacidosis, which occurs primarily in diabetics, is a condition characterized by excessive levels of certain acids called ketone bodies (e.g., acetone, acetoacetate, and β-hydroxybutyrate) in the blood. Therefore, to avoid alcohol-related hypoglycemia and its consequences, diabetics should consume alcohol only with or shortly after meals. For example, Arky and colleagues (1968) studied five diabetics who experienced severe hypoglycemia after ingesting alcohol.