Beer & Diabates

simonaderson said:

Alcohol has loads of sugar in it .

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Just to clarify this a bit, or it might pass on misinformation. A lot of drinks do have sugar in them if they have sweet mixes added. Beer and wine have carbohydrates unless the wine is really dry.

But pure alcohol by itself does not have any sugar in it. This seems confusing to some people, especially since alcohol is made with sugar. I used to make my own beer. You can control the amount of alcohol in it by the amount of sugar that you add.

But the brewing yeast transforms the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. It isn't sugar any more after the yeast finishes with it.

Alcohol is so unique that it almost deserves a food group all by itself. When it is put into one of the 'fats, sugar, protein' groups, it is classified as a fat, and that is the closest group for it.

After it is in the body the liver makes one change in it, and then it is a fat.

For example a book that was popular awhile ago, 'good fats, bad fats' had alcohol listed as the worst fat. It actually doesn't make any more sense to say that alcohol has sugar in it than it does to say that fat has sugar in it.

Hope I'm not being disagreeable. I'm really not much at arguing. I'm not a fighter or a lover, I'm a runner (in both situations) Sorted that out long time ago.

The beer we have is stronger than in the US for example, but I still drink 2-3 beers avarage with my friend (once a week or twice in 3 weeks) and I just get a drink every few days.

Basic rule: do nothing when you drink and several hours afetr. Even if your BG comes back HIGH you do NOTHING for a few hours. For example if you have been drinking all evening and you test your BG and find it at about 20mmol/l (normal is ~5mmol/l). You want to go to sleep. The bolus you inject is exactly 0 units. The next morning you are more than likely to wake up with at least 12mmol/l and THEN you inject.

Although it's slightly different depending on the organism, but alcohol ALWAYS drops your BG.

Beer will raise your BG quite a lot, however the alcohol you took in will compensate some of it. I recommend to see how much is actually compensated before doing anything, otherwise you might end up in a hypo.

Stronger drinks (like whiskey) act a bit differently. For me the BG rise is not that big, but the drop is rather fast and severe (relatively of course).

In short, you should use insulin to compensate alcoholic drinks quite after you drank it in order to avoid an overkill.

I know I'm knew here but after some "unintentional experimentation" I've found what Vytautas works with me as well. However Beer and Hard alcohol should really be treated differently. The alcohol content for beer here in the US doesn't wash out the carb difference. It will raise you and leave you there unless you take a unit or so. Hard alcohol on the other hand is a tricky one. At face value it will raise your BG pretty high. Taking insulin at that time will do nothing for you except set you up for a BAD morning. All of the insulin you would've taken to correct will hit you all at once in a few hours. If you're sleeping at the time it is a disaster and a VERY scary moment. I would not say take no insulin, however depending on your sensitivty you'd have to plan accordingly and definitely test first thing when you get up.

You hear so often that alcohol puts your blood sugar up that I finally put a page up on my little sig hobby site. I just realized I can add a link to the sig going directly to that page, and I'll do that soon.

Anyway, this next paragraph is probably the most important part of the page for people who aren't big on reading.

"The Complete Book of Food Counts" by Corinne T Netzer gives this information for 1 ounce of 80 proof (40% alcohol) distilled liquors. Calories: 65, protein: 0 grams, carbohydrates: trace, fat: 0 grams.

So not sure how that is ever going to put anyone's blood glucose up, with no carbs and no protein. Fats and alcohol are both processed by the body without insulin, so there might not be a point to trying to cover alcohol with insulin.

For me a beer comes out to the same as a slice of bread. The carbs part of it does need to be covered.

When I found out I was a diabetic I was in a foreign country and I didn't want to start insulin, so I survived for a few months with about 80% of my calories coming from fats and alcohol. (Really bad move and not trying to recommend it. In fact, don't even try that, it led to a circulation problem that took a small miracle to reverse.)

But I was enthusiastic about the alcohol part (!) I would get the 40% 750 cc bottles and drink a quarter a day for supper. Never once had it put my blood glucose up.