Will social drinking lead to diabetes?
The sugar present in your blood is referred to as glucose. Glucose is the primary source of energy for the body. Glucose in your blood is attained from food, nutrients in the body, and from glucose stored in your muscles. If your glucose levels in your body, also known as blood sugar, drop your body burns the glucose stores in your muscles or produces more sugar from the nutrients in your body. If the levels are too high, the body produces a hormone called insulin to lower the glucose level.
Drinking alcohol inhibits your body’s ability to maintain healthy blood glucose levels. Instead of focusing on producing, restoring, and maintaining glucose levels in the body, the body must focus primarily on ridding the body of the alcohol. If you drink alcohol on a regular basis, the body will spend a significant amount of time metabolizing the alcohol. Consequently, the body becomes less efficient in producing the hormones necessary to maintain healthy glucose (blood sugar) levels in the body.
The adverse affects associated with regular, and especially heavy, alcohol consumption on the body are significant. If the efficiency of the body’s ability to maintain blood glucose (sugar) levels is decreased, the individual can become diabetic or glucose intolerant. Both diabetes and glucose intolerance are chronic conditions that require regular medical treatment and substantial diet changes. The emergence of either condition will make drinking alcohol dangerous, as it will further limit the production of insulin in the body.
Drinking alcohol is not dangerous in moderation. But drinking heavily or if you drink alcohol more than occasionally, you are increasing your risk of diabetes or glucose intolerance. Not only will regular alcohol consumption affect your health, it will affect your weight also. If you are striving to lose weight or trying to maintain your current weight, regular alcohol consumption will adversely affect your metabolism. And the inefficient production of glucose hormones to regulate your blood sugar will make weight loss extremely difficult.
