Sweet wine - unexpected BG result - thoughts?
neohdiver
Posts: 738 Member
I've been controlling my blood glucose levels since diagnosis in early October by diet. I eat fewer than 20 net carbs in a 3 hour period/50 in a day. (97% of my readings have been in the non-diabetic normal range) I've had 4 glasses of wine since my diabetes diagnosis in October - 2 of them on one day. All were on the sweet end of the spectrum, although one was slightly less sweet.
Each time I've expected that drinking my fat-free, fiber-free carbs (not to mention an unpredictable quantity carbs since few wines actually post carbs) would result in very quick, high spike in my blood glucose levels.
Each time I've been surprised that my BG readings at 1 & 2 hours were either down, or up no more than the testing margin of error.
This time I had a Moscato - one of the sweetest white wines (aside from ice wines). It can have upwards of 30 grams of carb per 5 oz glass. (One that does publish it is 34.8 grams per 5 oz.) By the taste, I would have said this one was higher than average for residual sugar. I had a 6 oz.
Result: Starting BG: 102 BG at 1 hour: 93
Anyone else have that kind of experience with wines? Any explanation?
Each time I've expected that drinking my fat-free, fiber-free carbs (not to mention an unpredictable quantity carbs since few wines actually post carbs) would result in very quick, high spike in my blood glucose levels.
Each time I've been surprised that my BG readings at 1 & 2 hours were either down, or up no more than the testing margin of error.
This time I had a Moscato - one of the sweetest white wines (aside from ice wines). It can have upwards of 30 grams of carb per 5 oz glass. (One that does publish it is 34.8 grams per 5 oz.) By the taste, I would have said this one was higher than average for residual sugar. I had a 6 oz.
Result: Starting BG: 102 BG at 1 hour: 93
Anyone else have that kind of experience with wines? Any explanation?
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I don't have diabetes so I don't monitor bg, I also don't know why that isn't effecting your bg. I just wanted to say sounds like a good thing
I can't do the sweet wines anymore they just taste to sweet to me, but it's nice you can still enjoy something you like and keep in line. 0 -
auntstephie321 wrote: »I don't have diabetes so I don't monitor bg, I also don't know why that isn't effecting your bg. I just wanted to say sounds like a good thing I can't do the sweet wines anymore they just taste to sweet to me, but it's nice you can still enjoy something you like and keep in line.
I'm just very suspicious . . . it feels as if I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. My doctor even commented on how little it impacted my blood glucose at my 2-month check-up.
And, truth be told, I'd far rather be able to eat a decent whole grain roll once in a while.
But . . . if the pattern holds, I can use sweet wine instead of almonds to conquer the dawn effect (high blood glucose in the morning)! (Just kidding - as I hope you can guess from the massive 22 ounces of alcohol I've consumed in 4 months.)0 -
Wine is known to help lower blood glucose. When your liver is processing alcohol, it cannot also supply glucose to your body. So your blood sugar goes down because your liver stops supplying it.
The same is true of marijuana... Just sayin
Lol0 -
Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Wine is known to help lower blood glucose. When your liver is processing alcohol, it cannot also supply glucose to your body. So your blood sugar goes down because your liver stops supplying it.
The same is true of marijuana... Just sayin
Lol
Not that I'm a regular herb smoker by any means, but I did live in Washington state where it was legal before moving to Scotland. And I can definitely verify that marijuana lowered my bg. However, it certainly wasn't a long term solution for me as I really don't enjoy that feeling.0 -
PaleoInScotland wrote: »Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Wine is known to help lower blood glucose. When your liver is processing alcohol, it cannot also supply glucose to your body. So your blood sugar goes down because your liver stops supplying it.
The same is true of marijuana... Just sayin
Lol
Not that I'm a regular herb smoker by any means, but I did live in Washington state where it was legal before moving to Scotland. And I can definitely verify that marijuana lowered my bg. However, it certainly wasn't a long term solution for me as I really don't enjoy that feeling.
Yeah, I think it's more widely accepted to have a nightly glass of wine as opposed to a dooby. Lol
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I think SB nailed it. Alcohol inhibits GNG:
http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/275/5/E897.full0 -
Interesting. . . All of the literature addressing low carb diets discusses needing to take care to choose distilled spirits over wine over beer based on the carb content.
I guess that means I don't need to worry about whether I choose a sweet wine (which I prefer) over a dry one on the rare occasion when I drink.
That opens up some interesting possibilities - I wonder if I could occasionally have a whole grain bun accompanied by a glass of wine. That's an experiment for another day - since the glass of wine took care of any spare calories I have left for today. Gotta go eat that rabbit food so I get my micronutrients!0 -
Interesting. . . All of the literature addressing low carb diets discusses needing to take care to choose distilled spirits over wine over beer based on the carb content.
I guess that means I don't need to worry about whether I choose a sweet wine (which I prefer) over a dry one on the rare occasion when I drink.
That opens up some interesting possibilities - I wonder if I could occasionally have a whole grain bun accompanied by a glass of wine. That's an experiment for another day - since the glass of wine took care of any spare calories I have left for today. Gotta go eat that rabbit food so I get my micronutrients!
Well, the liver doesn't stop your body from secreting insulin to cover the consumed carbs. It just stops the liver from providing glucose as it does all day long.
So, you're still getting an insulin response no matter what. It's just not compounded by extra glucose from your liver.
Part of the issues associated with T2D is insulin resistance. Where your cells become basically stubborn and don't want to take in the glucose to store as fat. Which it tends to do a lot of around the liver and pancreas which complicates the whole situation even further. Fat around the pancreas is responsible for reduced insulin supply and fat around the liver is responsible for reduced insulin sensitivity. This how the whole metabolic condition comes about in the first place.
So, in short, I wouldn't eat that bread if I were you. The alcohol would just serve to hide what's act silly happening. High blood sugar is the warning that our bodies gives that's basically screaming "hey, something is wrong here". Eating the same old way but using insulin or in this case alcohol to control the blood sugar is just masking what's going on. But the underlying metabolic disfunction would still be taking place in the presence of excess carbs.
Using a dry wine to help with "dawn phenomenon" might be a good idea though.0 -
Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Well, the liver doesn't stop your body from secreting insulin to cover the consumed carbs. It just stops the liver from providing glucose as it does all day long.
So, you're still getting an insulin response no matter what. It's just not compounded by extra glucose from your liver. . . . High blood sugar is the warning that our bodies gives that's basically screaming "hey, something is wrong here". Eating the same old way but using insulin or in this case alcohol to control the blood sugar is just masking what's going on. But the underlying metabolic disfunction would still be taking place in the presence of excess carbs.
Using a dry wine to help with "dawn phenomenon" might be a good idea though.
It doesn't seem to to me as if masking is precisely what is going on.
If my insulin resistant cell can't handle the background glucose + the consumed glucose, and the alcohol drops the background glucose, while the background level is lower I should be able to handle 20 grams (what I can currently tolerate ) + (enough carbs to make up for the absence of background glucose)
As I understand it, the elevated blood sugar isn't a warning sign - but the actual wrecking ball that does the damage. As long as that stays in the normal range, it's hard to see that occasionally taking advantage of alcohol to lower the background level of glucose so I can bump up the carbs a bit and still stay in the normal range (because my body is still handling the same amount of glucose it would have been absent the alcohol) would be a significant concern.
Obviously I still need to do some more thinking - since until a couple of hours ago I was concerned that the wine would elevate my blood glucose.0 -
Interesting conversation, though I don't understand a lot of it. But it has me thinking I should have a glass of wine.0
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Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Well, the liver doesn't stop your body from secreting insulin to cover the consumed carbs. It just stops the liver from providing glucose as it does all day long.
So, you're still getting an insulin response no matter what. It's just not compounded by extra glucose from your liver. . . . High blood sugar is the warning that our bodies gives that's basically screaming "hey, something is wrong here". Eating the same old way but using insulin or in this case alcohol to control the blood sugar is just masking what's going on. But the underlying metabolic disfunction would still be taking place in the presence of excess carbs.
Using a dry wine to help with "dawn phenomenon" might be a good idea though.
It doesn't seem to to me as if masking is precisely what is going on.
If my insulin resistant cell can't handle the background glucose + the consumed glucose, and the alcohol drops the background glucose, while the background level is lower I should be able to handle 20 grams (what I can currently tolerate ) + (enough carbs to make up for the absence of background glucose)
As I understand it, the elevated blood sugar isn't a warning sign - but the actual wrecking ball that does the damage. As long as that stays in the normal range, it's hard to see that occasionally taking advantage of alcohol to lower the background level of glucose so I can bump up the carbs a bit and still stay in the normal range (because my body is still handling the same amount of glucose it would have been absent the alcohol) would be a significant concern.
Obviously I still need to do some more thinking - since until a couple of hours ago I was concerned that the wine would elevate my blood glucose.
What I mean by that is that high blood sugar is a symptom of an existing problem. T2D doesn't start with just suddenly having high blood sugar for no reason. It's a symptom of the reduced insulin sensitivity. The way to increase sensitivity is to reduce the presence of carbohydrate. Low carb already does that. But we basically know that the lower you go, the quicker the sensitivity seems to improve. But, it won't necessarily stay improved with introduction of carbs again. So substituting consumed carbs for the glucose not being delivered by the liver is sort of a draw. I guess. If you don't consider the presence of grains themselves a bad thing.
Just my opinion. But alcohol has drawbacks. It's something I'm keeping in my life even though I know it's not actually beneficial in any way. I don't have high blood sugar, but I would probably use it as a "tool" to aid in preventing dawn phenomenon if I did have that issue. Anyway, besides drinking it for that reason, technically it does nothing good for us. So, to decide, well, my blood sugar seems better controlled when I drink wine so that means I can eat some otherwise forbidden foods at the same time, is the kind of thinking that can pose a problem for long term success.
It's focusing on the symptom but not the underlying condition.0 -
Interesting!
Moscato, incidentally, is the only kind of wine I actually like. Shame it's so high in carbs but interesting that it affects BG that way!0 -
Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Well, the liver doesn't stop your body from secreting insulin to cover the consumed carbs. It just stops the liver from providing glucose as it does all day long.
So, you're still getting an insulin response no matter what. It's just not compounded by extra glucose from your liver. . . . High blood sugar is the warning that our bodies gives that's basically screaming "hey, something is wrong here". Eating the same old way but using insulin or in this case alcohol to control the blood sugar is just masking what's going on. But the underlying metabolic disfunction would still be taking place in the presence of excess carbs.
Using a dry wine to help with "dawn phenomenon" might be a good idea though.
It doesn't seem to to me as if masking is precisely what is going on.
If my insulin resistant cell can't handle the background glucose + the consumed glucose, and the alcohol drops the background glucose, while the background level is lower I should be able to handle 20 grams (what I can currently tolerate ) + (enough carbs to make up for the absence of background glucose)
As I understand it, the elevated blood sugar isn't a warning sign - but the actual wrecking ball that does the damage. As long as that stays in the normal range, it's hard to see that occasionally taking advantage of alcohol to lower the background level of glucose so I can bump up the carbs a bit and still stay in the normal range (because my body is still handling the same amount of glucose it would have been absent the alcohol) would be a significant concern.
Obviously I still need to do some more thinking - since until a couple of hours ago I was concerned that the wine would elevate my blood glucose.
What I mean by that is that high blood sugar is a symptom of an existing problem. T2D doesn't start with just suddenly having high blood sugar for no reason. It's a symptom of the reduced insulin sensitivity. The way to increase sensitivity is to reduce the presence of carbohydrate. Low carb already does that. But we basically know that the lower you go, the quicker the sensitivity seems to improve. But, it won't necessarily stay improved with introduction of carbs again. So substituting consumed carbs for the glucose not being delivered by the liver is sort of a draw. I guess. If you don't consider the presence of grains themselves a bad thing.
Just my opinion. But alcohol has drawbacks. It's something I'm keeping in my life even though I know it's not actually beneficial in any way. I don't have high blood sugar, but I would probably use it as a "tool" to aid in preventing dawn phenomenon if I did have that issue. Anyway, besides drinking it for that reason, technically it does nothing good for us. So, to decide, well, my blood sugar seems better controlled when I drink wine so that means I can eat some otherwise forbidden foods at the same time, is the kind of thinking that can pose a problem for long term success.
It's focusing on the symptom but not the underlying condition.
I know it is not a fix for the cause of the insulin resistance - we don't yet know how to do that. But unlike most other diseases where we treat symptoms because the symptoms are directly troublesome, the diabetes symptom (elevated blood glucose) is an underlying cause for additional life threatening and life- disrupting medical conditions. So managing the symptoms is treating the underlying conditions for chronic kidney disease, coronary artery disease, neuropathy, etc. Maintaining control over blood glucose levels (by whatever means) is not masking the disease by covering up the symptoms. It's treating the underlying causes of further damage.
As for reintroducing forbidden foods - unless you're doing zero carbs, eating grains occasionally would not be reintroducing carbs, because carbs were never out of your diet.
Depending on what an individual body tolerates, it might not even be re-introducing grains. I don't consider grain forbidden, inherently bad, or even inherently worse than any other carb. I think that demonizing certain kinds of foods is far more likely to undermine success. So, from my perspective, it isn't that grains are forbidden - It is just that the quantity of carbs/serving is high enough that it isn't generally practical to include in my diet.
Since early December until last week when I finally ate the last one, I've been eating 2 grain-based spritz cookies a day (total of 13 carbs). I made some that were almond-flour based, but they taste more like Marzipan than cookies so in the big scheme of things, the 7 extra carbs were worth having the real flavor. My average blood glucose, since 3 days after diagnosis is 108 (in the normal range), so having a small quantity of grain based carbs did not cause dangerous elevation of blood glucose.
That said, I don't have the blood glucose bandwidth to eat a decent roll - 20 grams seems to be about the cap, and most rolls exceed that. An occasion when I'm likely to have wine is also one in which there might be an opportunity to enjoy a nice dinner roll - as long as doing so would not create a risk by elevating my blood glucose out of the normal range (2 of the 4 glasses of wine were at Thanksgiving celebrations). It appears as though the glucose suppressing mechanism of alcohol might make that possible.
(As to insulin sensitivity - I'm pretty sure the research is mixed on that question, with at least some studies showing that a long term ketogenic diet increases insulin resistance. One theory is that by dramatically decreasing the need to remove glucose from the bloodstream, your body adapts by shutting down the mechanism responsible for that transport even more.)0 -
I'm not Diabetic but have chosen to continue with low carb alcohol within my calorie range, have been drinking Prosecco as it is 2 carbs per 5 ounce glass, it's a nice addition to a great Cobb salad and filet mignon when dining out.0
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You @Sunny_Bunny_ for your expertise.0
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Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »PaleoInScotland wrote: »Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Wine is known to help lower blood glucose. When your liver is processing alcohol, it cannot also supply glucose to your body. So your blood sugar goes down because your liver stops supplying it.
The same is true of marijuana... Just sayin
Lol
Not that I'm a regular herb smoker by any means, but I did live in Washington state where it was legal before moving to Scotland. And I can definitely verify that marijuana lowered my bg. However, it certainly wasn't a long term solution for me as I really don't enjoy that feeling.
Yeah, I think it's more widely accepted to have a nightly glass of wine as opposed to a dooby. Lol
Unfortunately wine makes me feel equally as crappy as marijuana, which is a bummer because I enjoy it while I'm drinking it. I'm just super excited that I can treat my diabetes naturally with the right foods, like pork belly! Albeit pork isn't socially acceptable everywhere either, but fortunately I live in a country that rears some exceptionally tasty pigs 0 -
totaloblivia wrote: »You @Sunny_Bunny_ for your expertise.
I meant thanks!0 -
Thanks all for this conversation. I found it incredibly interesting!
I tend to experience dawn phenomenon when i eat in the evening even if it was zero carb food. I am thinking I might try a bit of wine, or even apple cider vinegar, on those evenings when I eat late. I tend not to drink much due to roseaca (the rudolf the red nosed reindeer look is just not attractive on a middle aged woman) but maybe I'll try experimenting with this. I had completely forgotten about how alcohol and vinegar can sometimes help.
Thank you! 0
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