Oh crap, diabetes, no more wine for me.

So I was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes in the past 10 days. I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with it but wine looks like it’s going to have to take a back seat. As much as I hate to ponder the possibility, I may have to develop a taste for insipid low ABV burgs and shelve the real wine (my Saxum/Pax/Aubert/Scholium collection) for extremely rare special occasions. My two bottles of Noval Nacional Port look like they are going to have to be included in my will.

Anyone else dealing with this issue? Either the search function doesn’t work or no one has posted on it yet. Probably both.

Wow Jay that really sucks. I’m sorry I don’t have any knowledge about it to share. Hopefully, others here do.

That’s horrible – so sorry to hear it. Sounds like just about my worst nightmare. Be curious to see what others have to contribute…

Jay - my father was diagnosed 10 years ago and he has started an excercise regiment and started avoiding white rice, white breads, potatoes, desserts , etc and his blood sugars (which he checks religiously) all are under control. He has wine still about 3-5 days a week and the diabetes, while always present is no longer the challenge in his life, it once was. I tell you this to hopefully cheer you up and let you kow you do not neccessarily have to give this great hobby of ours up. But it did require a bit of lifestyle change on his part. I am not a Doctor or in the medical field but this was our experience.

I sincerely wish you the best in figuring out what foods/drinks spike and do not effect your blood sugars and would be happy to have you talk to him if you would like to speak with someone who has undergone this. I can tell you wine has little effect on his blood sugars or at least not nearly as much as foods do. As an FYI - he was in his mid 50s and about 230 when diagnosed and is now in mid 60s and just under 200 lbs.

I wish you the best and Good luck.

Jay… Sorry to hear this. You mean Type 2, yes? If so… you may not be lost entirely. Everyone’s different and obviously do what your doc says, but my Mom suffered from that and the docs said that a glass a day wasn’t going to make a big difference as long as she managed her diet etc well otherwise which she did. She lived until almost 91, so… it can be done. Large tastings? No. But perhaps modest consumption.


The important part is to get it under control and make the needed dietary and exercise changes. Good luck.

So, one of my brothers was diagnosed with diabetes and he went off the deep end thinking it was the end. Guessing you might be feeling that way. I just talked to him and here is what he said:

His doctor has told him the following so YMMV: He can drink wine because the liver is inhibited from producing glucose. it’s that “extra” glucose from the liver(other than food) that causes a diabetic situation in insulin resistant people like him, the cells can absorb the insulin that fights off the glucose - the liver is inhibited because alcohol is poison to the human body and the liver spends 100% of it’s time ridding the body of that poison, hence no glucose production during that period. Cells can’t absorb the insulin in insulin resistant people, it’s not so much a bad pancreas (depends on person but there are tests to determine), it’s insulin resistant body cells. You can actually have a low blood sugar situation when drinking depending on how well your body handles it, a low blood sugar state will look just like a drunk person in fact, disorientated, slurring, etc

He has dramatically changed his diet and exercise routine. He walks a good 5+ miles a day, and has lost 70 pounds (He weighed 230 at time of diagnosis). He has completely eliminated carbohydrates, specifically simple carbohydrates from his diet. His life has completely returned to normal. If you re case is mild then diet and exercise can most likely control it. The good news for him: he drinks wine everyday now and he is healthier than he has ever been in his life.

gk

He says you should buy this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Sugar-101-About-Diabetes/dp/0964711613/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324491726&sr=8-1

One of my closest wine geek / collector friends has diabetes. He generally avoids all but a small bit of sweet wines, and he has to stop and test once or twice during long wine dinners, but he seems to be able to manage at 90%+ level as to his overall wine consumption and enjoyment, and I don’t think the style or alcohol level of wines makes a significant different to him physically.

Very sorry to hear your news, but hopefully you can continue to enjoy your passion for wine at the same time as you take care of your overall health. Best wishes to you.

Jay I have the same and have gone from 4-5 bottles a week down to 1-2. I still arrange OL’s. I do not get enough exercise which if I did would have my blood sugars under control and would enable me to cut down on my meds.
BTW, a gastric bypass is a complete cure, they are not too sure why. That of course has its own problems and restrictions.

Jay–take a diabetes class and talk with a dietician. If you lose weight and exercise it will help a lot. You’ll have to restrict carbohydrates, but you can still have some. wine counts as a carb, so syou have to include it in your carb allowance, but it doesn’t mean you cant have any–it just means if you have some, you’ve got to cut out some other carbs that day.

I have a friend whose parents are both hereditary diabetics and through careful dieting, they are daily wine drinkers. However, as a precaution, they only drink dry and extra dry wine. No off-drys or sweeties.

Jay,

Very sorry to read this, but, as many have written, it doesn’t have to mean the end of all but the sweetest of wines. Just monitor your intake during dinners/benders/etc. and adjust your insulin accordingly.

Jay,

Exercise and diet (if you’re not doing so now…)

So sorry to hear that, Jay. I know nothing about diabetes, but hopefully you can get around most of it as people say. All the best,

Peter

+1. Don’t panic. My wife was disagnosed a couple of years ago and was very upset until she took the class and talked to a dietician. The changes to her diet were not that radical and she still drinks wine every night and her numbers have been good.

All four grandparents had type one, my brothers were diagnosed type one at age 23 and type two at age 26 respectively. I, for whatever reason, am not at age 38. Anyway, your wine drinking should be completely unharmed by DM. Even port, in moderation.
–B

I know someone who was diagnosed last year. He was about 35 pounds overweight. He started eating great, lost all the excess weight in 6 months, and the problem went mostly away. He now drinks wine again, although he opens about 1 bottle per week instead of one every other day.

As rick said, everybody’s different. But, fwiw…

Not just exercise – freakin EXERCISE. Gym membership. Kick its ass. And learn that glycemic load list. The good part about that is that the benefits are many. The bad part is just getting over the hump. Any time someone says you can’t have a certain food, or food group, I crave it, dunno bout you. And at first going to the gym is work and aggravation. But momentum is everything. You just plain gut it out for a week or two and thereafter you’ve got momentum.

Also I read a book called Sugar Nation recently and recommend that. The author loves his red wine, and isn’t giving it up, though I get the impression he’s no wine geek.
But the long and short is that you’re gonna have to make changes – and choices. Exercise and no white food will go a long way.
And yeah, you and I can’t bundle our two glasses a day into a 12 glass party on Sundays. Gotta space it out. Can still have a glass a night probably, after we’ve made all the macro changes.

Very sorry to hear this, Jay. But I agree with the posts above that cutting out red wine is not the answer, if not the antithesis of what you need to do. Exercise, even low-impact to start, will greatly benefit you, as will reducing (but NOT eliminating) carbs. I eat 120g of carbs per day, no more, along with 15g of sugar max. I’ve lost 70 pounds doing this, and probably staved off diabetes in the process. Completely eliminating carbs is dangerous for brain function (brings on ketosis) but drastically reducing carb intake will have a dramatic effect on your overall well-being. Red wine (and NOT white) has countless health benefits and is, to me, an essential part of a balanced diet. I found that during the weeks when I was actively losing wait (I’m in maintenance mode), I lost more weight in weeks when I drank red wine than in weeks I didn’t. And I tracked everything. Check out the “Belly Fat Cure” for more details. And good luck.

Sorry to hear this Jay. My wife has diabetes and drinks very, very little. She has been fighting it for years.
Have to agree about the exercise and lossing weight.
Once you start taking insulin - losing weight is much harder.
The most important thing is to get your “numbers” under control and at a constant level and not all over the place.
Join the GymBerserker Board!!