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Does Alcohol Really Lower Blood Sugars This Much?

Rachox

Oracle
Retired Moderator
Messages
17,765
Location
Oxford
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I don’t usually drink alcohol (generally just some bubbly to toast in the New Year) but hubby got some espresso creme liqueur for Xmas, last night I had a sip and it was delicious, so I went on to have a small glassful. This is my last 24 hours read out from my Libre! A small low just before eating my evening meal which is normal for me, a small rise with my low carb meal then consistently low, between 2 and 4 mmol/l til this morning when numbers have returned to normal. Is this really the result of a small drink on a normally teetotal body?!

 

Have you ever experienced compression lows? For me, overnight the Libre has always been a bit Jackanory in terms of reasonable graphs.

In reality, I think you'd have to repeat the experiment for a better indictation. Your body could h ave been very distracted by the alcohol, or over-reacting to it.
 
I have had the odd compression low in the night, but nothing so low and for so long! It was low throughout the evening before too, when I wasn’t lying on it. As you say I just might need to have another experimental glass!
 
My short answer is...I wish!!!

Maybe it's the combination of sugar, cream and caffeine and alcohol.
Definitely needs repeating, several times
 
After abstinence of 163 days I let go and had a couple of largish straight whiskey's (Grouse) this Christmas late afternoon before tea. I tested before eating as usual and was surprised to find it was 4.4 (I'm usually in the range of 5 - 5.9 at this time of day. Didn't test till fasting next morning and was 4.9 so pretty sure it had an effect on my Bg levels.
 
becca59 said:
Alcohol can lead to lower levels as your liver is busy getting rid of the alcohol rather than the sugar. It is why you have to be particularly vigilant when injecting insulin.
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It's not that. The liver is so busy processing the alcohol that it ignores the hormone glucagon (which would normally signal to the liver to catabolise gylcogen back into glucose releasing glucose into the body). I.e. it's not about the liver processing glucose, it's about the liver NOT releasing glucose
 
Sorry folks my stage two research wasn’t very scientific! I had last night’s drink with my evening meal not before and it was a non creamy, salted caramel liqueur. I didn’t get the dramatically low levels as the night before! As usual diabetes isn’t straight forward and so many different nuances affect us!

 
At least you "tried" the experiment
 
I had to more or less stop consuming alcohol. Alcohol plus gluten intolerance gave me a graph similar to your first one with the lows. In fact I had a small glass of wine at Christmas. That bit of alcohol dropped my night time base line (around 3am) from 6 to 3.9. The timing of your tipple will also have an impact. Alcohol with food is far better than alcohol on its own. Nice 2nd graph by the way.
 
It is indeed my experiemce that alcohol does lower blood sugar levels. In my xase I use whisky neat and a one finger shot can drop my bgl post prandial by up to 3 mmol/l. It is my goto emergency bolus if I have a carby meal. I have not tried other tipples but whisky works for me.
 
Hi,

I don’t feel it lowers BG.
But it does delay any liver dump reaction. Where I need to be mindful using exogenous insulin is if I do drop whilst alcohol has been consumed? It can hit me faster. (Also with the effects of alcohol masking possible hypo awareness. )
Whiskey or Vodka as a rule can affect me this way..
 
More testing needed
 
Rachox said:
I have had the odd compression low in the night, but nothing so low and for so long! It was low throughout the evening before too, when I wasn’t lying on it. As you say I just might need to have another experimental glass!
Click to expand...


Best of 3/5/7 or 9?
 
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