If levels are low enough, it may even cause seizures.
Can Alcohol Cause Diabetes?
For example, Ben and colleagues (1991) compared the blood sugar levels of 46 type 2 diabetics who were “habitual drinkers”; 35 nondrinking type 2 diabetics; and 40 nondiabetic, nondrinking control subjects. In people with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes, single episodes of alcohol consumption (i.e., acute alcohol consumption) generally do not lead to clinically significant changes in blood sugar levels. When drinking alcohol is combined with the medications most often used to treat diabetes—particularly insulin and sulfonylureas, low blood glucose can result. It’s most common among people with type 1 diabetes who take medication such as insulin to control their blood glucose. For people with diabetes, drinking alcohol can cause low or high blood sugar, affect diabetes medicines, and cause other possible problems.
Are there benefits to drinking alcohol with diabetes?
- And those with diabetes need to bring down elevated glucose levels.
- Those doses are equivalent to approximately 2.5 to 5 standard drinks.3 Interestingly, studies of acute alcohol exposure in nondiabetic people have yielded quite variable results, noting decreases, increases, or no changes in glucose levels.
- Talk with your doctor before drinking alcohol to make sure alcohol won’t reduce the effectiveness of your medication.
- Alcohol can interact with diabetes medications and impact your blood sugar.
- If you have diabetes, you may wonder if it’s safe to drink alcohol.
Detailed analyses demonstrated that although the glucagon and epinephrine responses to hypoglycemia were unaffected, the growth hormone and cortisol responses were reduced after alcohol consumption. First, alcohol consumption can lead to a situation called hypoglycemic unawareness in both diabetics and nondiabetics (Kerr et al. 1990). Such experiments, which have been conducted mainly on non-diabetics, have demonstrated that acute alcohol administration leads to increased insulin resistance (Avogaro et al. 1983; Yki-Jarvinen and Nikkila 1985; Shelmet et al. 1988; Boden et al. 1993). The mechanism(s) underlying the increasing hyperglycemia in chronically drinking diabetics are still unknown. The alcohol amounts administered in those studies were usually between 0.5 g/kg (gram per kilogram body weight) and 1 g/kg, leading to blood alcohol levels (BALs) between approximately 0.03 and 0.1 percent2 (McDonald 1980). Two additional medications—metformin and troglitazone—are now being used to treat people with type 2 diabetes.
Always test blood sugar before having an alcoholic beverage
These guidelines are the maximum amount of alcohol to drink. Have a snack or meal as you sip or immediately beforehand to lower the risk of hypoglycemia. Drinking alcohol in moderation has also been linked to a number of other health benefits, such as increasing the amount of good cholesterol (HDL) in the blood. Excess weight can contribute to the onset of type 2 diabetes, and it can make the condition worse. What’s more, when the liver breaks down alcohol, it converts it to fat, which can contribute to weight gain. Regular, long-term use of alcohol has been shown to increase insulin resistance.
The relationship between alcohol consumption and retinopathy in that study, however, was not independent (i.e., it may have resulted from other intermediary factors, such as greater alcohol-related blood sugar elevation in drinking diabetics than in nondrinking diabetics). In addition to being highly painful and potentially fatal, this inflammation may interfere with the production of insulin, thereby potentially worsening control of blood sugar levels and making hypertriglyceridemia a particularly serious complication in diabetics. This means that after an episode of hypoglycemia, glucose levels return to normal more slowly in drinking diabetics than in nondrinking diabetics, suggesting an alcohol-related impairment in the counter-regulatory response to hypoglycemia (Avogaro et al. 1993).
Alcohol can also interact with some medications that are prescribed to people with diabetes. If you’re living with diabetes, talk to your doctor about how alcohol may impact your condition management plan, even if you only have an occasional alcoholic beverage. It acts by inducing an unpleasant physical response (e.g., nausea and vomiting) after alcohol consumption. Accordingly, more studies are needed to determine whether the beneficial effects of daily moderate alcohol consumption outweigh the deleterious effects. Consequently, the information regarding the relationship between alcohol ingestion and diabetic eye disease remains inconsistent, underlining the need for further studies. Alcohol reduces blood levels of testosterone and may thereby further exacerbate the existing hormonal deficit.
Combining the blood-sugar-lowering effects of the medication with alcohol can lead to hypoglycemia or “insulin shock,” which is a medical emergency. First of all, alcohol impacts the liver in doing its job of regulating blood sugar. Diabetics clearly should avoid heavy drinking (i.e., more than 10 to 12 drinks per day), because it can cause ketoacidosis and hypertriglyceridemia. Based on assumptions regarding the alcohol content of the beverages mentioned in the study, “heavy” drinkers were defined as those who ingested 29 grams of alcohol, or approximately two to three standard drinks, per day. The relationship of alcohol consumption to cardiovascular disease in diabetic people has not been well evaluated.
How Alcohol Affects Blood Sugar
Type 2 diabetes involves having too much blood glucose. As a result, blood glucose levels remain low. This tends to lower your blood sugar while you’re drinking, especially if you’re not eating.
Moderate (eight to 14 drinks per week) and heavy (more than 15 drinks per week) were shown to elevate blood pressure. They found that one to seven drinks per week didn’t increase blood pressure. Research has found that light drinking has no effect on blood pressure, but moderate and heavy drinking can. Having diabetes doubles the risk of heart disease. You may talk to a healthcare provider to know how alcohol will affect your blood sugar. Alcohol can raise blood sugar, especially if you drink too much or have sugary cocktails.
Eat First
HDL cholesterol has a protective effect against cardiovascular disease and is called “good” cholesterol. LDL cholesterol is strongly related to cardiovascular disease and stroke and has been called “bad” cholesterol. Moreover, elevated triglyceride levels can cause severe inflammation of the pancreas (i.e., pancreatitis). Because insulin restrains glucagon secretion, lower insulin secretion allows increased glucagon secretion, setting the stage for the development of ketoacidosis.
Light drinking can help lower blood sugar. It’s important to eat before you drink, test your blood sugar regularly, and wear identification if you have diabetes. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends no more than one drink per day for women and two drinks for men if you have diabetes.
Risks of Alcohol in Type 2 Diabetes
Cardiovascular disease continues to be one of the leading causes of death among all Americans and is the leading cause of death in people with type 2 diabetes (Bierman 1992). 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. Both the depletion of glycogen and diminished gluconeogenesis lead to lower blood sugar levels. People who consume those high amounts of alcohol typically have been drinking and not eating for days and/or have vomited or developed other illnesses from drinking. Diabetics in particular learn to recognize those symptoms and prevent a further decline in blood sugar levels by eating some food. Hypoglycemia can have serious, even life-threatening, consequences, because adequate blood sugar levels are needed to ensure brain functioning.
Diabetic eye disease (i.e., retinopathy) is another troublesome tissue complication what is holistic addiction treatment of diabetes and one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States today. Those researchers also reported that diabetics who consumed more than eight standard drinks per week developed peripheral neuropathy faster than did diabetics who consumed eight or fewer drinks per week. Other researchers observed that the prevalence of neuropathy in type 1 diabetics increased in a linear fashion with the alcohol amount consumed (Mitchell and Vinik 1987). Consumption of more than three drinks, however, resulted in elevated blood pressure in both men and women compared with nondrinkers.
Benefits of Alcohol in Type 2 Diabetes
It makes sense, then, that drinking could play a role in preventing and treating type 2 diabetes. The increase in blood sugar levels gives way to hyperglycemia, or too-high blood sugar. Glucagon kits, widely used to treat hypoglycemia in type 1 diabetes, do not work as well if someone has alcohol in their system.
The two most common forms of diabetes are type 1 and type 2 diabetes, with type 2 diabetes accounting for at least 90 percent of all cases. This article first reviews the pathophysiology of the two major forms of diabetes, type 1 and type 2. The disease is caused in most cases by a deficiency or complete lack of the hormone insulin, which is produced in the pancreas, or by an inability of the body to respond appropriately to insulin (i.e., insulin resistance).
Because alcohol use, at least on a social level, is widespread among diabetics as well as nondiabetics, clinicians and researchers must understand alcohol’s effect on the progression and complications of diabetes. And if you often have hypoglycemia unawareness, a condition in which you don’t recognize you’re going low, drinking becomes especially dicey. This organ stabilizes glucose levels by storing carbohydrates and releasing them into the bloodstream between meals and overnight. Those on the opposite ends of the spectrum—people that drink heavily and those that don’t—have a greater risk. Maybe their doctors cautioned them that drinking and diabetes don’t mix.
- Your body processes alcohol differently than most foods and beverages.
- If you’d like to have the occasional drink, talk to your doctor first.
- These symptoms can be confused with or mask the symptoms of low blood sugar.
- Type 2 diabetes, which in most cases develops in people over age 40, has a somewhat different pathophysiology than type 1.
Food slows down the rate at which alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream. The main function of your liver is to store glycogen, which is the stored form of glucose, so that you will have a source of glucose when you haven’t eaten. Even if you only rarely drink alcohol, talk with your healthcare provider about it so that he or she knows which medications are best for you.
It takes a break from releasing glucose when you drink. Blood sugar management is a priority for people with diabetes. If you’re drinking, you may also be more likely to eat food that’s high in added sugar or fat or fried and processed food. When you drink too much, these calories can replace those of more nutrient-rich foods and drinks, leading to weight gain. Many drinks have about seven calories per gram.