If you’re having frequent trouble managing your blood sugar levels, you should consider if it’s safe for you to drink alcohol. Alcohol can interact with diabetes medications and impact your blood sugar. 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.
Alcohol and Carbohydrates
He is a leading pediatric endocrinologist and prominent thought leader in artificial pancreas research. Dr. Pinsker joined Tandem from Sansum Diabetes Research Institute in Santa Barbara, California, where he served as the Director of Artificial Pancreas Technology since 2018. In his role at Sansum, he was a lead investigator in numerous clinical trials on automated insulin delivery systems, including Basal-IQ technology and Control-IQ technology. Prior to this, he was Chief of Pediatric Endocrinology at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii.
If you’re looking to replace some of the sugar in your diet with sugar alcohol, it is important to understand the differences between the two. Sugar alcohols are carbohydrates that contain 1/2 to 1/3 of the calories of traditional sugar. Daily exercise is one of the best tools for fighting rising blood sugars and insulin resistance during the holidays. If someone chooses to consume alcohol, they should have food with it and keep a close watch on their blood sugar. Moderate alcohol consumption does not raise the risk of type 2 diabetes; however, heavy consumption might.
Most importantly, if individuals wish to engage in moderate drinking, they should first discuss it with their doctor. They should also keep a closer watch on their blood sugar so they can quickly react if levels fall too low. Because alcohol is highly addictive and research links heavy Natural Products for the Prevention and Treatment of Hangover and Alcohol Use Disorder PMC consumption to an array of adverse health effects, avoiding the beverage is the healthiest choice for anyone.
- The Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) warns that individuals with diabetes may have other conditions that alcohol could affect.
- 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.
- The problem is that the liver cannot perform both functions at the same time.
- For people with diabetes, drinking alcohol can cause low or high blood sugar, affect diabetes medicines, and cause other possible problems.
- The study had a number of limitations, however, which might alter the perception of impact.
- Depending on your health condition, that may mean no alcohol at all.
Alcohol and Diabetes: Understanding the Impact
This is particularly important for people with diabetes to recognize. There are many different types of drugs that can work in different ways to lower your blood glucose (blood sugar). Because even moderate alcohol consumption can adversely many aspects of health, the negatives seem to outweigh the positives. Depending on the severity of someone’s alcohol use disorder, they may choose to seek inpatient or an outpatient treatment. Have someone in the support group who knows how to give emergency glucagon by injection or nasal inhalation. For people new to the intersection of alcohol and diabetes, it’s advisable to have a friend or family member who knows diabetes to check in with.
But if you do drink, know that not all alcoholic beverages are created equal when it comes to diabetes. Over time, excessive alcohol consumption can reduce the overall effectiveness of insulin. Many people with alcoholic liver disease also have either glucose intolerance or diabetes. Exercise can also increase the risk of hypoglycemia when coupled with other factors, such as drinking alcohol. Doctors strongly encourage people with diabetes to engage in regular physical activity because it reduces blood sugar.
Drinking alcohol can lead to serious low blood sugar reactions.
That can make it especially difficult to get a grip on how many carbs and calories you’re consuming. “Over 50% of my patients on semaglutide and tirzepatide have remarkably less desire to drink alcohol.” “There have been many studies that show GLP-1 mitigate the desire to consume alcohol,” Decotiis, who was not involved in the Swedish study, told Fox News Digital. This isn’t the first study to link GLP-1s to reduced alcohol intake, according to Dr. Sue Decotiis, MD, a weight-loss doctor in New York City. For participants who had AUD, obesity and type 2 diabetes, the use of GLP-1 medications was linked to “substantially decreased risk of hospitalization due to AUD,” the researchers wrote. Monitor glucose frequently, have fast-acting carbohydrate available, and always have glucagon available for an emergency.
So it will focus on dealing with alcohol first rather than converting glycogen to glucose. If you’ve consumed so much alcohol that you begin vomiting, this is your body’s way of try to manage the “overdose” of alcohol. As a person with diabetes—especially if you take insulin—it’s important to check your blood sugar very often in the hours after vomiting.
First of all, alcohol impacts the liver in doing its job of regulating blood sugar. Alcohol can also interact with some medications that are prescribed to people with diabetes. 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. Most people with diabetes can enjoy an occasional alcoholic drink. Each alcoholic beverage takes between 1 and 1.5 hours to finish processing in the liver. The more alcohol a person consumes, the higher their risk of experiencing low blood sugar levels.
Studies show drinking moderately (about one drink per day) may improve heart health and decrease the risk of diabetes. However, some studies don’t account for frequency, the population being studied, and the types of beverages consumed. You are probably better off, however, if you choose drinks that have fewer carbohydrates, such as light beers, dry wines, and seltzers. Avoid drinks that contain sweet mixers or juices, such as a margarita or tequila sunrise. Alcohol can also affect your body’s ability to regulate blood sugar.