Diabetes And Alcohol Consumption

By Adrian Fletcher in Diabetes on April 5th, 2008

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by Adrian Fletcher

Being diagnosed with Diabetes is a life changing event. As yet there is no cure for the disease and this means you will have diabetes for the rest of your life. You have to adapt and live with the disease.

Treatment involves monitoring your blood sugar level every day. It may also mean injecting insulin or taking some form of medication to make your body more responsive to insulin. It should involve getting more exercise. And it must include watching what you eat and drink.

Apart from taking control of your body’s insulin production, watching what you eat and drink is probably the hardest thing to get used to. Most people have been used to eating what they want and having to rein this in feels like a serious degrading of quality of life. however, once you have got used to a few basic rules, planning a diabetic meal plan is quite easy.

One thing that many people wonder about is how alcohol and diabetes go together or maybe they don’t go together. This article will cover diabetes and alcohol consumption. How alcohol affects the body and how you can consume alcohol moderately if you have diabetes.

There is no restriction on consuming alcohol for a diabetic provided it is in moderation. Many alcohol beverages will have lots of calories and sugar in them. This has two effects. It will increase the blood sugar immediately and promote weight gain over the long term. Being overweight or putting on weight increases the chances of having other complications as a result of diabetes. Most doctors will advise diabetics to lose weight or keep their weight within a specific range of this.

When you consume alcohol your liver temporarily suspends making glucose and starts to remove the alcohol from your bloodstream instead. It is estimated to take around 2 hours for one ounce of alcohol to be completely metabolized depending on body size, weight and physical fitness.

Whilst this happens, there is a chance that the blood sugar level can become low. A person with low blood sugar may be hypoglycemic. Hypoglycemic people often feel tired or light headed. They may even pass out if the blood sugar is very low. This is why you should never drink on an empty stomach.

So for anyone about to drink alcohol, a small snack should be taken beforehand. This is particular relevant to diabetics and they should try to keep their blood sugar levels as stable as possible. A snack will cause the liver to create glucose and put it into the bloodstream before alcohol enters the body. If you take any diabetes pills then you shouldn’t drink for a few hours after or as the prescription advises.

Be temperate with your alcohol consumption. Alcohol has no real benefits to the body in terms of nutrients. For diabetics it will only cause spikes in your blood sugar levels. this is ultimately bad for the body as it will increase the chances of further diabetic complications affecting you. In particular, your circulation will get worse and this could lead to numbness in the feet, damage to the nerves and problems with the cardiovascular system.

Having a glass or two of wine with dinner is perfectly ok. Drinking alcohol as part of a celebration is also fine. As you become more experienced with diabetes you will know when you have taken on too much alcohol.

About the Author:

Find out about health problems caused by type 2 diabetes and how the diabetes glycemic food index can help you create diabetic meal plans.