No, Drinking More Won't Lower Your Diabetes Risk

You might have stumbled across some headlines recently declaring that drinking alcohol will lower your risk of type 2 diabetes. “Looking to Ward Off Diabetes? Drink Alcohol, Study Suggests,” proclaimed one article. “Regular Drinking Can Reduce Risk of Developing Diabetes,” another stated. If that seems a little off to you, you’re right. While research has found that moderate drinking is generally OK for you, it’s a stretch to say that it’s actually good for you—and that includes lowering your diabetes risk.
Here's what you need to know about that recent diabetes study.
That study, published in the journal Diabetologia, was based on data from the Danish Health Examination Survey, which followed 28,704 men and 41,847 women for about five years. During that time, participants completed self-reported questionnaires to get information on how often they drank alcohol, how often they engaged in binge drinking, and how much wine, beer, and hard alcohol they drank weekly. The researchers also got information on how many of these people developed diabetes.
Here’s what they found: During a follow-up, 859 men and 887 women developed diabetes. The researchers found that the people with the lowest risk of developing diabetes were men who had 14 drinks per week and women who had 9 drinks per week. According to their data, these groups were less likely to develop diabetes than people who had one drink or less per week. They also examined the types of alcohol people were drinking and found that those who drank wine had the lowest diabetes risk; and in men, beer was also li Continue reading

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Why frequent, moderate drinking may ward off diabetes

It’s not every day that medical studies say alcohol could be good for you. People who drink moderately often have a lower risk of developing diabetes than those who never drink, according to a new study published in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.
Men and women who hoist a few glasses three to four days a week have the lowest risks of developing diabetes, Danish researchers found. Compared to people drinking less than one day each week, men who drink frequently had a 27% lower risk while women had a 32% lower risk, the researchers said.
Diabetes is a disease in which blood glucose — sugar — levels are high. When we eat, most of our food is turned into glucose to be burned as energy, with a hormone called insulin helping our cells absorb glucose. People who have diabetes either don’t make enough insulin or don’t use it effectively. As a result, sugar builds up in their blood, leading to health problems.
Past studies consistently showed that light to moderate drinking carried a lower risk of diabetes compared to sobriety, while heavy drinking had an equal or greater risk. Though the World Health Organization reports “harmful use of alcohol” contributes to more than 200 diseases and injuries, it also acknowledges that light to moderate drinking may be beneficial with respect to diabetes.
Since an important relationship exists between drinking and diabetes, Professor Janne Tolstrup and her colleagues from the National Institute of Public Health of the University of Southern Denmark studied the specifics.
How the stu Continue reading

How Can Drinking Wine Help Reduce Diabetes Risk?

A new study suggests that frequent, moderate alcohol consumption might lower chance of developing Type 2 diabetes
Researchers found that alcohol appeared to impact men and women differently when it comes to diabetes.
Wine has been linked in multiple studies to a reduced risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and related health issues. Now, a group of researchers has found further evidence, suggesting that how frequently you drink may determine if you're getting optimal protective benefits against this disease.
"A number of studies [have] already found that diabetes risk was lower among those with a light to moderate intake as compared to nondrinkers and those with a heavy intake," Janne Tolstrup, who led the research team from the University of Southern Denmark's National Institute of Public Health, told Wine Spectator in an email. "We aimed at testing if drinking patterns, measured in frequency, played a role in this association."
The study, published in the diabetes research journal Diabetologia, used data from the Danish Health Examination Survey, a 2007 survey of the diet, smoking habits, alcohol intake and physical activity of Danish adults. From the data, researchers identified 70,551 diabetes-free participants (28,704 men and 41,847 women) and tracked their self-reported drinking habits and health over the course of five years.
By the end of the study in 2012, 859 of the men and 887 of the women had developed diabetes. Researchers determined that those who had the lowest risk for diabetes were those who drank at moderate—and for women, slightly higher—levels: 14 drin Continue reading

Alcohol Consumption Lowers Diabetes Risk — but Is Abstaining Bad for You?

Everybody loves a good headline about the proven health benefits of dark chocolate or red wine, but scientific studies extolling the virtues of “sinful” substances are rarely so cut and dry. A few drinks a week may lower your chances of getting one disease, but significantly boost the risk of acquiring something just as deadly.
A good example is a study published today on the correlation between alcohol consumption and diabetes. The paper, published in the journal Diabetologia, concluded that men and women who drink alcohol three to four times a week have a significantly lower chance of acquiring diabetes compared to people who drink less than one day a week on average.
Men who drank a few days a week had a 27 percent lower diabetes risk than infrequent drinkers, according to the report, and women had a 32 percent lower chance of getting the disease, which is the sixth leading cause of death worldwide, claiming 1.59 million lives each year.
Janne Tolstrup with the National Institute of Public Health at the University of Southern Denmark was lead author of the alcohol and diabetes study. In an email, she drew a clear line between drawing reasonable scientific conclusions from a single study and making broad generalizations about the health benefits or risks of drinking.
“In this study, we have a narrow focus on diabetes only,” wrote Tolstrup, “but since alcohol is related to more than 50 different diseases and conditions — reflecting that alcohol affects virtually every organ system of the body — any recommendations about how to drink and how much to drink shou Continue reading

Real Talk With Dave: Feeling Bad For Having Diabetes – My Worst Experience

This is something that is very personal to me, and I really haven’t shared how I felt about it up until now.
Over Christmas break of 2016, my family and I decided to go on a vacation to Egypt. This was the first time I have traveled with my Diabetes out of the country in the 9 years I have lived with T1D, so I knew I would run into a few issues along the way, but I also knew that I would have my family with me for help and support if I needed it. Many things were planned ahead of time, such as what Diabetic supplies to bring, how much to bring, what to do to treat lows in a foreign country (that may not have the same carb contents as the US) etc. But most of these issues I was worrying about were for when I actually arrived to my destination. I had not realized that problems could still present themselves in the traveling process.
I have never been treated poorly for having a chronic illness, nor have I ever been somewhat judged for this disease that I live with 24/7 and that I did not ask for. I am not going to name where I was when this happened, as I don’t want to call out any country. That being said, I have a lot of respect for the country and people I interacted with as they were just doing their job and trying to stick to their security precautions. But, as we had a layover more than halfway to our actual destination, we stopped in a country where we were not sure how they would react to me having to bring in all my low supplies such as juice bottles, syringes, snacks, etc.
I had a separate suitcase that I carried everywhere I went that contained all my Diabetic Continue reading