Does alcohol increase insulin or increase sensitivity to insulin? To put it more functionally, by what mechanism does alcohol lower blood glucose?
I’m having trouble finding an answer to this question. The diabetes books I’m reading are evenly split between “alcohol is poison–don’t drink it,” “alcohol increases insulin–don’t drink it,” and “alcohol increases sensitivity to insulin–drink a little if it’s not clinically contraindicated.” My understanding is that alcohol plus glucophage can cause hypoglycemia, but this is not my question–I just want to know whether minimal drinking, in the absence of medication, is problematic or beneficial in relation to normalizing insulin/glucose levels.
The metabolism of alcohol uses up a certain compound (called NAD). The resultant lack of NAD makes it more difficult for your liver to produce glucose from amino acids and other substances.
This will be not be a problem if there’s stored glycogen in the liver, since glycogen can be broken down into glucose. However, if you’ve not been eating (as is often the case in someone who’s been drinking heavily), there will be no glycogen deposited in the liver. In this case, it’s a double-whammy. No glycogen from which to make glucose and no NAD to help make glucose from amino acids. Hypoglycemia results.
Alcohol also mimics the symptoms of hypoglycemia and vice versa. So, if a diabetic drinks alcohol and happens to become hypoglycemic, not only may he/she be mistaken for being drunk, his/her body may have a harder time making glucose to counter the hypoglycemia (as described above).
In the long term, alcohol may damage someone’s liver. This often leads, through a long chain of events, to decreased insulin sensitivity and mild diabetes. After an even longer chain of events, when the liver’s essentially gone, insulin sensitivity will increase. So, it’s a bit convoluted.
Yeah, low sugar, not high. I think their explanation makes sense too: basically that the body reacts to the toxicity of the alcohol more severely than to its carb content.
While I don’t have many “facts” to suggest about the OP, I do have personal experience to go off of.
My father has been hospitalized twice, both of which pointed towards alcohol and diabetes the alcohol creating problems along with his diabetes.
The lastest results (from nearly NOT drinking at all) has showed that his pancreas (sp) is now safe from the effects of alcohol because of his lack of drinking. This “suggests” to me that the insulin effect is there and insulin is released to a greater (or lesser as I am not completely educated on what the pancreas does) degree while consuming alcohol on a regular basis. The pancreas (again spelling) does regulate the insulin protein and helps aid in glucose levels. Essentially, if I am correct, the pancreas, if further damaged due to alcoholism, is unable to help regulate blood glucose or more pointedly, insulin.
I am a complete layperson and only have looked it up in the past because of my father’s potential death sentence he had a year ago. I can pretty much tell you that drinking while diabetic is a not a proposition anyone wants to enter into unless you drink responsibly. However here are some other thoughts:
I know this is even more “junk science” but in Suzanne Somer’s books, the doctor that does the forward in it, suggests that alcohol is horrible for diabetics and can contribute to a lot more maladies than previously thought. Given how much I have looked into those claims and my father’s diabetes, I tend to see where she is coming from. I would assume that a properly done diet along with careful alcohol consumption wont put you in the hospital like my father but it might be a good idea for those with diabetes to reconsider alcohol consumption, especially for the alcoholic who may require serious intervention.
I had initially looked for the different levels of carbs (which turn into glucose) by some government agency, FDA was the top of my list but I can’t find the link. That would give you a good idea of the difference in carb calories to determine what might be a better idea for the diabetic to engage in libations on a social level.
Anyhow, as one that has been dealing with alcoholism most of her adult life, one that has been in a family of alcholics and one that is currently getting off the alcohol and taking the medications that will make her life stable, if you can tolerate a drink or two then I say it’s okay. Always discuss your drinking habits with your doc.
I have diabetes in my adoptive family and none of it has been pretty. From my granddaddy dying from complications of it and his heart disease that got worse because of his unhealthy lifestyle to my grandmother who lost her eye sight because of diabetes to my now 65 year old father who had to quit drinking in or to save his life because the adverse effects it had on his diabetes. It’s not been fun.
Thanks. These are interesting ideas. I’m specifically interested in the effects of small amounts of alcohol on insulin and/or glucose, supported by scientific documentation. I’m not talking about alcoholism, drinking without eating, or diabetes (type II) + medication + alcohol. I have read repeatedly (and my own blood tests support) that small amounts of alcohol lower blood sugar. I am trying to understand whether this is because alcohol increases insulin (bad for me) or increases sensitivity to insulin (potentially good for me).
To operationalize this, I’m talking about 2-3.5 oz. of wine with dinner–a scant half-glass–in the context of a balanced 1500-1800 cal./day diet with 30-90 minutes of aerobic exercise a day.
In my experience, being hypoglycemic, I’ve found that alcohol’s simple sugars are readily broken down and give me a boost. The non-complex nature of the sugars tend to make me “crash out” in a few hours though. My doctor told me to avoid alcohol (yeah right), simple sugars, etc.
I had a test done on my blood sugar levels and alcohol, my blood sugar count sky rocketed after a dose of alcohol but quickly plumeted. I don’t know if this is useful info. for a diabetic though.