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Beer and wine effect on blood sugar

S

Sapien

Well-Known Member
Messages
140
Location
United States
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
I had an unexpected experience with drinking beer with dinner. I haven’t had any beer or wine since I started testing my blood sugar. This weekend I had a lager beer with dinner. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. (Dinner was grilled fish, hummus, veggies and a salad).

My blood sugar dropped after dinner (usually it rises a bit) but then my next morning fasting blood sugar was higher than typical.

Pre-dinner 103 (5.7)
2-hour post dinner 92 (5.1)
Morning fasting 104 (5.8)

Morning fasting has been running 88 (4.9) to 95 (5.3) recently. Morning fasting is almost always lower than pre-dinner normally- unless I exercise right before dinner which usually drops my blood sugar.

I had understood that alcohol would likely make blood sugar rise some then drop, but the effect seemed to be the opposite. (Type 1 diabetics seem to have issues with hypos during the night).
 
Beer and wine are different, or at least beer and red wine are different. Beer contains a lot of carbs, which is why it is known as liquid bread. The carbs will make a person'ts levels rise as you would expect, but then the liver kicks in to deal with the alcohol and the levels drop, quite often to hypo levels if a lot of beer was drunk. Red wine has virtually no carbs so you don't get the rise, but you do get a drop depending how much you drink.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
Beer and wine are different, or at least beer and red wine are different. Beer contains a lot of carbs, which is why it is known as liquid bread. The carbs will make a person'ts levels rise as you would expect, but then the liver kicks in to deal with the alcohol and the levels drop, quite often to hypo levels if a lot of beer was drunk. Red wine has virtually no carbs so you don't get the rise, but you do get a drop depending how much you drink.
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What you describe is what I expected, but the effect of the beer seemed the opposite for me. Blood sugar dropped right afterwards, but then rose higher than usual by morning. The alcohol seemed to have an unfavorable effect on fasting blood sugar.
 
Sapien said:
What you describe is what I expected, but the effect of the beer seemed the opposite for me. Blood sugar dropped right afterwards, but then rose higher than usual by morning. The alcohol seemed to have an unfavorable effect on fasting blood sugar.
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It dropped by the 2 hour mark, but what happened prior to that? Beer is quick release glucose, so it will most likely have peaked quite early and was on its way back down by 2 hours. I can't comment on what caused the slightly higher FBG but I doubt it was the beer - unless you drank gallons of it. ;)
 
I always thought that with beer, the liver prioritised handling alcohol and thus glucose levels fall in the short term until the carbs kick in and raise your levels again?
 
urbanracer said:
I always thought that with beer, the liver prioritised handling alcohol and thus glucose levels fall in the short term until the carbs kick in and raise your levels again?
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You could be right. I am only speaking from experience at having seen a friend hypo after drinking beer - several hours later. But he was a T1 back in the old old days of big needles and no glucose meters. I'm not a beer drinker so have no personal experience.
 
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