Alcohol and Diabetes
The amount of alcohol we drink can affect our health, mental health and also weight.
For people with diabetes, alcohol can have some specific concerns. As alcohol has a lot of calories, it can be harder to have a healthy weight. To work out how many calories are in your drinks try the drinks calorie counter on the soberingthought.co.uk website.
For people on sulphonylureas or insulin, drinking alcohol can increase your risk of hypos as well as make it difficult to count carbohydrates. Too much alcohol can also affect your long term health for example, increasing your blood pressure and contributing to nerve damage.
There is helpful information and advice on the Diabetes UK website.
How do you know if you are drinking too much?
Current government guidance is: men and women are advised not to drink more than 14 units of alcohol in a week. Regularly drinking more than this can increase the risk to your health.
To find out more click on the links below:
www.drinkaware.co.uk (Drinkaware Trust) – website providing information and tools to help people make better choices about their drinking
www.alcoholaberdeen.org.uk (Alcohol and Drugs Action) – take the short quiz to help you see
whether the amount of alcohol you drink may be affecting your health
www.soberingthought.co.uk (Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships. Aberdeen City. Aberdeenshire. Moray) – this webpage provides information and online tools to help people make better choices about their drinking, including a calorie counter for alcohol
Printable Information:
What is a Unit of Alcohol? (NHS Grampian) – find out about the unit content and calorie content of different alcoholic drinks
What is a Unit of Alcohol? – Government Recommendations (NHS Grampian) – read more about the Government recommendations, and what a unit of alcohol is.
Recreational Drugs
For information on how drugs can affect people with diabetes try going to the Diabetes UK website
For information about recreational drugs and access to support and advice try the NHS Grampian Website