When drinking alcohol is combined with the medications most often used to treat diabetes—particularly insulin and sulfonylureas, low blood glucose can result. While a glass of wine with dinner probably isn’t a big deal, a mojito on an empty stomach at happy hour is. If you are managing your diabetes with diet and exercise alone, drinking alcohol can stil increase your risk of low blood sugars. And if you take insulin or types of diabetes pills that stimulate insulin production, drinking alcohol can lead to even more serious low blood sugar reactions.
This is why it’s especially important for your friends and family to know the risks of drinking alcohol with diabetes and the signs of low blood sugar. Your liver is releasing this stored glucose every day and night to give your brain and body the fuel it needs to function. The same stored glucose contributes to high blood sugars levels during the “dawn phenomenon” in the morning, too.
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But studies have found that drinking, especially heavy drinking, can increase your risk of having diabetes. People with blood sugar issues should avoid consuming mixed drinks and cocktails. These drinks are often full of sugar and empty calories and may increase blood sugar levels. Doctors advise some people with diabetes to abstain from alcohol for reasons unrelated to their blood sugar. The Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) warns that individuals with diabetes may have other conditions that alcohol could affect. In addition, certain non-diabetic medications do not mix well with alcohol.
The exception is sweet dessert wines, which pack 14 grams of carb in a tiny three-and-a-half-ounce glass. A daily cocktail or two may improve blood glucose (blood sugar) management and insulin sensitivity. If you have one or more drinks a day, you may find that your A1C is lower than during times you weren’t drinking. But if you don’t drink regularly, this doesn’t mean you should start. After all, other aspects of moderate drinkers’ lives may be behind the link.
- Drinking alcohol carries the same health risks for people with diabetes as it does in otherwise healthy people.
- Alcohol consumption can lead to dangerously low blood sugar levels.
- The more alcohol consumed, the bigger the risk for serious low blood sugar.
- Alcohol use can also lead to elevated blood fats, or triglycerides, which raises your heart disease risk.
How much is considered one drink?
Speak with your healthcare provider if you have questions or concerns about how alcohol impacts diabetes. Most diabetes medications work to lower your blood sugar (glucose) levels — and they’re particularly good at the job. Alcohol does the same thing, especially when consumed in larger quantities. When these two organs don’t work well, it can make your glucose control worse.
On the Coping Skills for Addiction Triggers and Recovery other hand, if you have lots of food and then drink too much, your blood sugar can get too high. Small amounts of beer and sweet wines can be high in carbohydrates, which can raise blood sugar temporarily. Drinking too much alcohol can increase triglyceride levels (fat in the blood) and your blood pressure. Aside from causing low blood sugar, drinking alcohol can also affect people with diabetes in several other ways.
Alcohol prevents your liver from doing its job
One notable disadvantage of sugar alcohol is that your body cannot completely digest it. Instead, bacteria in your stomach cause this alternative sweetener to ferment, often leading to indigestion. People with gastrointestinal conditions, like irritable bowel syndrome, may also find their symptoms are aggravated if they consume foods that contain sugar alcohol. However, according to American Diabetes Association (ADA), heavy consumption and zero consumption increase the risk. The ADA also states that a drink or two may improve insulin sensitivity and sugar management.
You may want to talk to your doctor to see if drinking alcohol is safe for you and get guidelines based on your specific health concerns. Different drinks vary in alcohol, carb, and sugar content and in how they affect a person’s blood sugar levels. The following tables contain information from the Department of Agriculture. They show the amount of carbs and sugar in different alcoholic beverages. The problem is that the liver cannot perform both functions at the same time.
Drinking less—as any healthcare professional will tell you—is better. 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. If your glucose drops to less than 70 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), you’ll need to down 15 grams of fast-acting carbohydrates. This could be three or four glucose tablets, 4 ounces of juice (a small juice box), or five pieces of hard candy (and not chocolate). Glucagon kits, widely used to treat hypoglycemia in type 1 diabetes, do not work as well if someone has alcohol in their system.
