Diabetes and home brewing.

[dale weaver]

As a dibetic, my blood sugars are a overriding concern. for me a good tasting beer means, high blood sugars.( yes i konw diabetics should not drink, no comments plz). has any one made a beer that a diabetic has drank and not seriously elevated their sugars. a recirulating mash at a low temp, may hold promise.

 

[rhys333]

Just don't.

 

[day_trippr]

Right.

Call me curious, but knowing little about managing diabetes, is there an "ideal beer" that would minimize any side effects of modest consumption?
What characteristics would it have? Uber dry nearly-non-alcohol?
If we had a target I bet the group could conjure up something that might work

Cheers!

 

[Jim R]

Low carb, low calorie, as low as possible ABV. I would look at the lowest ABV, session-type beers - Light Lagers, Blonde Ales, etc..

I am a doctor that treats diabetes. This would be like anything in a diabetic diet. It is all about amounts and trade offs. There would be a big difference between one beer and 5 beers. If you want one light, low calorie beer, you have to make up for it with less other food. If you are on insulin, you can also probably compensate with some extra short acting insulin to cover the beer. Another option is to earn your beer with some extra exercise.

It would be no different than asking about deserts. You can pick lower calorie pies, smaller pieces of pie, a little pie in place of the potatoes, etc.. A good goal would be to stick with the same daily totals of calories and carbs and then compensate if beer is substituted on some days although alcohol is probably converted to sugars faster than most other foods.

 

[pdxal]

Use an online calculator to determine the grams of carbs in the beer you are drinking and compensate.
Typically about enough insulin to cover about half your carbs in the beer is enough because the alcohol in beer inhibits glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis.

 

[Nick Poggetti]

Type 1 Diabetic here. There's always concern when consuming things without knowing your carb count, and of course the additional concern when consuming alcohol.

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, I'm not your endo, and I'm not telling you to do or don't do something - I'm just sharing my experience as a homebrewer and beer lover who also happens to be a type 1 diabetic.

I disagree with someone telling you not to drink. It's totally possible. It's the same as someone telling you not to have a candy bar because you're diabetic. For those of you who don't know, yes we as type 1 diabetics can eat anything a normal person eats, so long as we dose insulin correctly to compensate.

As diabetics we just need to be more careful than the average person. Figure out how something affects you, then next time take it into consideration and adjust from there...whether it's insulin, choice of beer, amount of beer. It's kinda like brewing.

What I avoid:
Drinking lots of beers with higher known sugar content, like anything with Lactose I know will give me a spike in blood sugar because it isn't fermented out. When I want something like this, I drink a 3-5oz pour and monitor from there. All things in moderation.

There are certain commercial beers I've find that really spike my bloodsugar, like all of Ballast points Sculpin beers...ESPECIALLY their grapefruit sclupin. For some reason I drink one of those and my blood sugar is in the high 200s in 15 minutes. So I don't touch those.

What works for me:
I brew and drink as normal, just within moderation. Of course you know drinking too much can lead to being drunk and not being able to control blood sugars. That's not ideal, don't do that.

Most beers I drink and make, typically don't affect my bloodsugar much, if at all. Alcohol has a reverse effect on your blood sugar that carbs do (see above posts for techincal terms). From how I understand it, your liver is busy processing the alcohol before it gets to the carbs (this is very lamens terms) so my bloodsugar won't spike. In fact, I have a habit of snacking lightly while drinking if I'm drinking more than 1 or 2 beers to make sure my bloodsugar stays up. But for reference, I'm a 12-16oz pour of beer per night kinda guy. I don't typically drink more than that.

Because I use an insulin pump with a CGM and have a closed loop that adjusts insulin as it changes, I'm pretty fortunate that I can drink a beer or two and see very little change in my glucose levels.

I dunno if anything I said helps, but that's just my experience as a Diabetic for ~17 years.

 

[Knightshade]

My boss has been brewing since his college days (he is in his 60s, only reason I know this is because the topic of retirement does come up often) and he is a Type I diabetic. I know this, because I know that he is a CGM user and I used to work at the company of the solution that he uses. He often times would pepper me with questions about the company, its software, etc., shortly after I was hired.

My grandfather was also a Type I, and I know that he would have the occasional drink, scotch if memory serves correctly.

I suspect like most things from a health perspective, it is about trade offs. Being diabetic, you just may have to do a little more planning than others.

 

[kevin58]

Type 2 here. Except for drinking beer in moderation I have not made any changes in the beer I make. Low ABV, moderate ABV, great big barleywines... I make and consume them all. I have a blood test and see my doctor for a consult once every 4 months and all of my numbers are within accepted norms. That said, I also go to the gym 5 to 6 days a week (recent months excluded) and watch my diet very closely.

 

[deuc224]

Type 1 here, Im 40 and have had diabetes so long that its almost second nature for me to adjust to what i eat. I will say that exercise and diet can help dramatically with consumption of beer, just be careful with belly fat. I dont limit what i can drink beer wise(dont do sweet liquor drinks) but rarely go over the 5 beer mark and if i feel like im overshooting, ill hit myself with insulin and keep the party going. My family and friends know all about it so I have spare pens at their houses which is great cuz I only take syringes with me. Best advice I can give is learn your body well, its not a plug and play system and sliding scales arent always the answer(if ever). This coming from a 28 year diabetic with no problems ( knock on wood) thanking god everyday.

P.S. Take everything including what i say with a grain of salt, im not a Dr , just a lifelong diabetic. If you need help with lungs, I got you on that front lol.

 

[Nick Poggetti]

I will say that exercise and diet can help dramatically with consumption of beer

Seriously - lowerish carb diet and regular activity is night and day and acts it's own form of insulin so much that so that when I go periods of little activity it gets hard to keep my bg in range.