I occasionally drink dry red wine, 1-2 glasses, with meals. It lowers my BG & I use less bolus. Very occasionally I'll have Guinness Draft. Love it & Guinness has less carbs & alcohol.
As a general rule, alcohol will lower blood sugars. So in the short term it is advantageous.
In the long term, excessive alcohol consumption damages the liver which is crucial to blood sugar control.
And at any time it could impair judgement and lead to unwise decisions, e.g. effecting things like driving, when to take insulin etc.
So bottom line, alcohol im moderation can be quite positive, both for diabetes and heart health. In excess, it can do a lot of damage.
In moderation it's good, more than that not so.
as
I know Bill but we where never friends , but I had a friend named Betty, I stayed with her for a year, I met her after I got home from Vietnam....I those days I lived what would be considered a scandalous life style. Betty tried to help me but she did not have the power to delver me from the Dark side. One day when I was wallowing in my mess a faint voice spoke to me in the dark and said I will always love you and I have given you many chances to change , and I have saved your life many times, it's time for you to stand up, do the right thing. Bill and Betty could never help me but I found someone with the power to do anything, and he saved me from myself....I can't thank him enough...I owe him everything...he payed for it...one day we will all get a chance to meet him...;-)
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who is "BETTY?" which Bill are we talking about here? i know Bill W. how about you? am now very confused.
Betty Ford...and I assumed you where talking about Bill Wilson.
Being from Vancouver BC I like a drink too but note the following:
a) hard liquor interferes with metformin operation on liver so I have a drink whne metformin not up to strength in blood.
b) wine seems to have less effect so drink my merlot for the reservatrol and timing not great issue.
c) as liver has priority to process booze before sugar, hard liquor will cause BG glucose drop and one wants to watch out.
Moderation is key as always and watch the hard liquor.
yes. that is exactly who i've been talking about. now it all makes sense. and are you still "friendly" with Bill Wilson?
Good points.
Redwine also has the advantage that unlike beer or liqour it contains tannin which studies show has a positive effect (in moderation of course) on heart health and preventing strokes and heart attacks.
It's also an essential part of the mediterranean diet, which is the closest thing I've ever found to an ideal diabetic diet.
Tor
good mention of the mediterranean diet - the ole hunter gatherer diet dressed up with a new marketing label for modern times. I follow that and add a few extra carbs to keep liver under control.
The one thing about the Mediterranean diet I skimp on is the carbs. The combination of pasta and bread - very common in for example Italy - tends to result in rolly polly shaped bodies in middle age. That aside, it's a good recipe for health.
Tor
To be fair; I watch and tightly control type and amounts of bread, and grains as those really shoot up my glucose. Pasta while I love drives my intestines/digestive cycle nuts and exercises my liver buffer too hard - so I skip that.
Glad I am not the only one enjoying a drink/wine.
As a fellow pasta lover, one of the dilemmas I faced when I went for the low Glycemic Index diet plan was that most pastas are quite high on the scale. (Fettucini apparantly is the lowest on that scale.) However, a couple of years ago I discovered a low carb pasta that I've been using since. It is a bit pricy compared to the regular stuff in your grocery store, but in my opinion worth the cost.
http://www.dreamfieldsfoods.com/
just to reply and add on: yesterday i decided to break from my usual morning eating routine. instead of eggs (protein) with a high fiber multi-grain piece of toast, i made myself some steel cut oats instead. i am certain you are all nodding your heads, knowing what the outcome would be:
i went from BS 95 to 250.
needless to say, i wont be eating porrage for breakfast any time soon. bummer.
1 cup of cooked oatmeal is about 25 g of carbs, about twice that of toast. And you combined the toast with eggs which have fat and slow digestion. Perhaps you could have a smaller serving of the oatmeal and put a big old pat of irish butter on top and pour in some heavy cream?
I would have the same problem, but when I eat oatmeal (3/4cup dry), I also have 1 oz of cheese and two small eggs cooked in 1 tbs of butter....what ever butter is left in pan I dump into the bowl with the oatmeal. That tbs of butter is also 100 calories...lots of food value...no BG spike but it will pack on the pounds if I eat it every morning.
Moderate wine with dinner, an occasional jolt of Scotch or Vodka, but never anything diabetically ludicrous like a Rum or other sweeter drink, and especially not beer, a carb-laden sucker punch with alcohol. As a very good doctor explained to me when I was only just discovering liquor, ages ago, the biggest problem with drinking is getting into a state where you can’t differentiate between the effects of low blood sugar and just being tipsy. Or schnockered, for that matter.
Testing frequently, of course, keeps the surprises away. And if your traveling companions by now don’t get kicks watching you bleed on a little plastic strip, you’re hanging with the wrong crowd for your indulgences in refreshing cocktails.
I am a hypocrite for saying so because I don't follow your advice .... BUT I do agree with you, SteveD. Being in tune with your body is important for people with diabetes. It's important to recognize the difference between normal tiredness vs. hypo tiredness, for example. Having a buzz or, worse yet, being drunk, can really mess with your awareness of reality.
I get no crash, and a continual raising of glucose with Red wine.
It's very slow, but it's there, so it's a situation where I'll check it after an hour or so and adjust accordingly.
Beer, again no crash, but I dose it accordingly to the carb content of the beer, and there seems to be a residual gain after the 5 hours of insulin use in the same way fatty food seems to outlast the insulin and then step on the pedal and begin to rise. I'm not completely sure what causes this.
Spirits. Nothing, but when I was on a slow acting, it could cause a crash. With fast acting/pump only. No effect at all.
My drink of choice is Coke Zero and vodka. If I do drink wine, I prefer semi-sweet white. I hardly ever drink though.