July 26, 2001
Meal Planning, Food and Diet
Question from South Africa:
My 35 year old wife was diagnosed about eight years ago, does not take insulin, is very careful with her diet and seems to keep her levels controlled this way. (Unfortunately we have only been together for the last three years and I don’t know her full history.) However, I am concerned about the erratic effect alcohol has on her.
We both enjoy a bottle of good wine on occasion and neither of us consume any spirits at all. Sometimes, she will drink a bottle of wine, and she will be perfectly fine. On other occasions, she will have only one glass of dry white wine and will then show all the symptoms of a drunk person (slurred speech, glazed look in her eyes, incoherent speech, irrational thinking). Once she had one glass of wine with friends after work and realised the next morning that she has no memory at all about what happened between being in the restaurant with her friends and waking up in our bed the next morning. During this time, she drove home and put herself to bed.
I need to know whether this problem is related to her diabetes and what I can do to help her as she is the most important being in my life and I live in constant fear that something might happen to her. If this is not related to her diabetes can you perhaps make any suggestion?
Answer:
Alcohol can have all kinds of effects on blood sugars. Some lower it and some raise it. Often it depends on what food is eaten with the alcohol and what the blood sugar is at the time. I think the only way your wife will know is to check her blood sugar before beginning the wine, during, and after to see what is happening. Without testing her blood sugar it’s very hard to predict just what impact the wine will and is having.The “good news” is that practice will make it easier to predict so next time you decide to enjoy a bottle of wine, so get the blood glucose meter out and experiment.
KS
