wine

[Sienna]

I've got the impression from reading posts here, that drinking wine with food lessens the takeup of sugars/starches, or maybe just alters how quickly it is taken up.
Can anyone comment? I dont want to utterly pig out on the wine or the food (well I do, but never mind, I'll resist), but wd love to know more . Maybe wine works like vinegar or lemon juice, also posted about here, at lowering the GI ?

 

[Caroline]

My understanding of it (and I could be wrong) it has something to do with way the liver deals withthe alcohol. It can't metabolise the alcohol and release glucose into your system at the same time and you'll spike later.

 

[DeusXM]

Alcohol inhibits your liver's ability to release glucose - but this effect tends to take place a few hours after drinking rather than straight away.

It shouldn't cause spikes later on in the day - usually the opposite happens. However, most alcoholic drinks also contain some sugars which will raise your blood sugar initially.

Drinking red wine with a meal will probably have very little impact on your postprandial reading as the alcohol effect will happen after your food has been metabolised.

 

[Sienna]

Alcohol inhibits your liver's ability to release glucose - but this effect tends to take place a few hours after drinking rather than straight away.
It shouldn't cause spikes later on in the day - usually the opposite happens. QUOTE]


Yes, I wasnt really wondering if alcohol made spikes spikier. Do they, as you suggest - do the opposite, lower spikes? Now THAT would be nice.
Caroline suggests they just make spikes delayed

 

[DeusXM]

As I said, the effect of alcohol on your blood sugar happens several hours after drinking so if you have alcohol with a meal, all that will happen is the meal will spike you as normal and then your basal glucose output will drop something like 5-6 hours later.

Alcohol won't have any effect on the overall GI or whatever of what you eat, it solely reduces the output of glucose from your liver. I'm also not aware of any credible evidence that vinegar or lemon juice reduces the GI of your food. Adding fat to a meal would change the GI as the fat slows down the metabolism but that's about it.

 

[Mark T]

As I said, the effect of alcohol on your blood sugar happens several hours after drinking so if you have alcohol with a meal, all that will happen is the meal will spike you as normal and then your basal glucose output will drop something like 5-6 hours later...

I would suspect that maybe it's something that's worth testing to see what happens if you are really interested.

I've actually had the alternative to DeusXM's experience in that I've had some alcohol with a meal and I've dropped (into the 4's) after the meal and then some 3 to 4 hours later I've started going up. Mind you that was with a protein dominated meal (steak!) so perhaps with a carb dominated meal it might be different.

It's possible a case of YMMV!