Caffeine and alcohol

KennyA said:

Hi

the ultimnate answer is you will need to consume and test to see what a particular substance in a particular quantity does to you. How things affect me might be no indication of how they'd affect you. For me caffeine via coffee or a caffeine drink has no impact on BG either way. I take my coffee very strong with cream.

Wines are relatively low in carb - about the same ballpark as beer but not drunk in the same quantity - well, I don't anyway. Spirits are zero carb, but a lot of mixers are variations of sugar solutions. I do not trust the syphon machines that bars use for common mixers. So your gin and vodka in themselves should have zero carb, but the mixers, whatever they are, need to be checked.

For me alcohol itself will lower my blood glucose levels - it appears to interfere with my liver adjusting my blood glucose. This usually produces skewed readings, and these days I won't bother doing a before-and-after test for a meal where I've had more than a glass of wine.

Word of warning - I have had one hypo when drinking after a 24 hour fast. I felt absolutely fine until I suddenly didn't, and although it was bad enough the consequences could have been a lot worse - I have the scars. Please be extra careful with alcohol if your BG is already low or if on BG-lowering meds.

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I always have my coffee weak and black and have assumed that it would be classed the same as water, am I wrong doing this?

Neither seems to affect me. I drink a lot of coffee, usually black but sometimes with cream. I am a very light drinker and only for a few days per month, but again see no effect. We are all different.

They can both affect insulin resistance directly by affecting sleep.
Can doesn't mean will, coffee because caffeine inhibits melatonin (like really well, it's why you get that jolt) - so I never have coffee after lunch - caffeine can be active up to 10 hours after you drink it. People are very much different in this.
Alcohol is a different bag - it's only your liver that can metabolise alcohol, and it will be turned into fat, which must be stored around your liver - this drives insulin resistance directly. On top of that, it also both makes it more difficult to fall asleep, and reduces the amount of restful sleep you get (when people say "I passed out" - that's actually pretty correct, you are unconscious, not properly sleeping).

Of course, the dose maketh the poison, and moderate drinking and morning coffee are totally fine for most people. Note that almost none of these effects directly raise blood glucose (indeed because of the way the liver needs to process alcohol, some people find that their blood glucose will go down..) so you need to be aware that insulin resistance isn't always about dealing with blood glucose.

I have to note that the initial question was about insulin resistance - not blood glucose per se.

Then to dig a little deeper.

Caffeine will also (again, different for different people) raise cortisol, which can increase blood glucose, but that is the only affect directly. Other than that, it's bizarrely full of soluble fibre and polyphenols - all of which are generally thought of as positive - indeed, there is a thought that many Americans actually get 20% of their fibre from coffee - if you can believe that...

And to answer your question directly on alcohol - how often could I drink? - well, that depends on loads of things, but mainly what your goals are. To get the most loaded with least effect on blood glucose - neat vodka. To improve insulin resistance - as little as you can manage. To avoid additional load on your liver - cut out the beer and cider. Try to make sure any mixers do not contain sugar (alcohol and fructose must be metabolised by the liver - so drive IR directly - if there is sugar in the mix, that both exacerbates - sugar is half fructose, then the glucose must also raise blood glucose, and thus insulin, in a liver already with increased resistance...).

You can see that it is complicated in both cases - and the literature doesn't help - but in all seriousness, the worst effects really are (in moderation obviously) because of effects on sleep - the problem is that we all tend to overestimate how much sleep we really get. But - if you feel you are sleeping well enough, whatever you are doing is probably ok.

The choices you make are yours though - no judgement from me (not by a very long shot... sheesh).

Chris24Main said:

Then to dig a little deeper.

Caffeine will also (again, different for different people) raise cortisol, which can increase blood glucose, but that is the only affect directly. Other than that, it's bizarrely full of soluble fibre and polyphenols - all of which are generally thought of as positive - indeed, there is a thought that many Americans actually get 20% of their fibre from coffee - if you can believe that...

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I get a rise from caffeine in the morning (in addition to FotF), but it tapers off by lunchtime (by which point I've had at least 4 cups of instant coffee) in the afternoon I don't see any effect aside from the carbs from the milk. I've never tried black coffee to eliminate the effect of the milk in the morning, but the rise is much larger than I would expect, however it's not definitive proof. If I ever run out of milk I'll report back

Chris24Main said:

And to answer your question directly on alcohol - how often could I drink? - well, that depends on loads of things, but mainly what your goals are. To get the most loaded with least effect on blood glucose - neat vodka. To improve insulin resistance - as little as you can manage. To avoid additional load on your liver - cut out the beer and cider. Try to make sure any mixers do not contain sugar (alcohol and fructose must be metabolised by the liver - so drive IR directly - if there is sugar in the mix, that both exacerbates - sugar is half fructose, then the glucose must also raise blood glucose, and thus insulin, in a liver already with increased resistance...).

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The one beneficial effect of drinking (to partial excess) in the evening it that is completely gets rid of FotF (and DP). The same effect can be obtained by exercising to partial excess, or just doing a normal quantity of exercise and drinking a normal quantity of beer (a couple of pints.) If it makes you tend to go low overnight, it will likely get rid of DP/FotF (in my case at least.)

Having drunk my way through university like a normal student of the 90s, I can safely say that the combination of being out and about (which means lots of walking between venues along with dancing and drinking) always made me hypo by the end of the night, and I would need quite a lot of uncovered carbs before bed to avoid over-night hypos. Even without the being out part (e.g. when at house parties) I would also be hypo by the end of the evening just from drinking.

Typically, when drinking to excess, any initial rise caused by e.g. beer and/or white wine would be obliviated by the subsequent fall (even while still drinking); red wine would probably be my preference now for no immediate BG rise (though I rarely drink these days so it's a moot point); cider is the one exception here, no matter how much one drinks (in my case anyway) BG keeps going up all night. This was, however, much more recently (I could look at the CGM data and kept taking bolus), so perhaps my liver was out of training (not a bad thing!). The hangover was also very unpleasant! Not recommended!