Diabetes and alcohol a dangerous mix, despite some dubious advice

By Bob Fleming

Recently I saw some information on the Net advising women with diabetes to drink alcohol to help relieve their symptoms. While no doubt this sounded like good news, it didn't sound like good advice so I decided to look into it further. Overwhelmingly, experts advise diabetics to drink alcohol with caution, if at all.

Let's look at how alcohol affects your body and your diabetes, and then some guidelines on how to incorporate alcohol into your lifestyle.

How alcohol affects your body's workings

When you drink alcohol, your liver immediately recognizes it as a toxin and goes into action to clean the alcohol out of your blood. To free it up for this duty, it has to temporarily stop producing glucose. If this happens while your stomach is empty or soon after you've taken your medications, you run the risk of hypoglycemia (blood sugar too low). It's also important to remember that it can take up to two hours for an ounce of alcohol to work its way through your system and for your liver to go back to its normal job of producing glucose, so just because you've drained your glass, don't think the risk is over. It's not.

If you already have certain of the complications associated with diabetes, drinking alcohol can make them worse. This includes diabetic eye disease and diabetic neuropathy (nerve disease). In fact, in the case of nerve damage from diabetes, alcohol can increase symptoms like pain, burning and numbness --- and you certainly don't want that!

Diabetes and alcohol: how they CAN live together

1. Never drink alcohol on an empty stomach. At least have a snack, or drink only with meals.

2. When you've been drinking, always test your blood before going to bed. Have a small snack before retiring to stop your blood sugar from dropping too low and triggering hypoglycemiawhile you're asleep.

3. Watch the amounts you drink. Contrary to some dubious advice, women should actually drink less than men, because they metabolize the alcohol more slowly so the effects on the liver last longer. Although you'll find some variations, most authorities including the American Diabetes Association recommend limiting to two drinks a day for men and one for women.One drink means 12 ounces of regular beer, or 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of spirits.

4. Don't be fooled by "low alcohol" beers, because they tend to contain more sugar than regular beer, so what you gain on one hand you lose on the other.

5. If you are counting diabetic exchanges, you should know that one drink is 2 fat exchanges, and regular beer is an additional 1 starch exchange.

If you follow these guidelines, you can still safely enjoy a drink. But be VERY cautious about listening to people who tell you it can help your diabetes because my research tells me that's just not true.