Diabetes Health Talk

Alcohol

Follow these guidelines to avoid low blood sugar levels when you drink:

Never drink alcohol on an empty stomach.
Limit yourself to 1 drink if you’re a woman or 2 drinks if you are a man.
Alcohol affects your body’s ability to get over a low blood sugar level. If you have low blood sugar, you may need to treat it more than once as time goes by. If you’ve been drinking, check your blood sugar before you go to sleep. Eat a snack before you retire to avoid a low blood sugar reaction while you sleep.

A warning: glucagon shots don’t help severe low blood glucose caused by drinking. Glucagon shots treat very severe low blood glucose reactions caused by too much insulin. Glucagon works by getting your liver to release more glucose into your blood. But alcohol stops this process. You need to be able to treat your reaction with a carbohydrate, such as oral glucose tablets or gels. So you need to avoid letting a low blood glucose level become severe. If you pass out, you will need glucose injected into your bloodstream by a health care professional.

Beer Belly Blues

Although an occasional drink may not hurt your blood sugar control, it can harm your eating plan if your goal is weight loss. Two light beers equal about 200 extra calories. Alcohol is called empty calories because it does not give you any nutrients.

If you are on a low-calorie meal plan, think twice about adding alcohol.

When Alcohol Is a Poor Choice

Some people with diabetes should not drink alcohol. Alcohol can make some diabetic problems worse.

If you have nerve damage from diabetes in your arms or legs, drinking can make it worse. Alcohol is toxic to nerves. Drinking can increase the pain, burning, tingling, numbness, and other symptoms found with nerve damage. Some studies show that even regular light drinking (less than two drinks per week) can bring on nerve damage.

Heavy drinking (3 or more drinks per day) may make diabetic eye disease worse. If you have high blood pressure, you can lower it if you stop drinking alcohol.

Many people with diabetes have high levels of the fat called triglyceride in their blood. If you do, you should not drink alcohol. Alcohol affects how the liver clears fat from the blood. Alcohol also spurs the liver on to make more triglycerides. Even light drinking (two 4-ounce glasses of wine a week) can raise triglyceride levels.