Is Alcohol Beneficial for Type 2 diabetes?

Stated in the BMJ journal, researchers looked at four drinking outcomes, 

including; 

  • Changes in heavy drinking days over the previous three months,
  • Drinking days per week,
  • Drinks per drinking day, 
  • Drinks per week from the baseline to the 12-month follow-up
(based on the findings of alcohol screens performed as part of normal medical treatment). 

Blood pressure (BP) reduction of 3 mm Hg at 18-month follow-up were used as health outcome indicators. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure measurements were also altered. We also looked at the glycohemoglobin (HbA1c) level change and "controlled HbA1c" (HbA1c8%) at the 18-month follow-up for patients with Type 2 Diabetes.

People with diabetes frequently drink, and in many circumstances, it may not cause any serious issues. In fact, women with a history of gestational diabetes who drink moderate amounts of alcohol had a decreased chance of acquiring type 2 diabetes. 

However, drinking alcohol may increase the risk of high blood pressure in those with diabetes, and drinking alcohol may pose serious hazards to those who have undergone gastric bypass surgery. Due to the fact that type 2 diabetes is already associated with a higher risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), having diabetes may also raise the risk of alcohol-related liver disease.


Study Follow up on Blood pressure


Is Alcohol Beneficial for Type 2 diabetes?

Blood pressure reductions after a short intervention

In comparison to study participants with high blood pressure who did not receive the alcohol intervention, there was a slight improvement in reported alcohol use after 12 months, with an average decrease of 0.06 drinks per drinking day and an average decrease of 0.30 drinks per week. A clinically significant decrease in diastolic blood pressure (the "bottom number" measured between heartbeats) of at least 3 mmHg was also 5% more likely to occur in those who received the intervention after 18 months.


Follow-up research on diabetic patients

However, there were no significant differences in the health outcomes of people with type 2 diabetes between those who received the alcohol intervention and those who did not — not in terms of reported alcohol consumption, blood pressure, or A1C level (a gauge of long-term blood glucose management). 

The researchers concluded that additional study is required to determine why some medical problems, such as high blood pressure, may make alcohol interventions more successful than others, such as type 2 diabetes. They stated plans to continue examining the results of alcohol screening and treatments in persons with different health issues, which might help reveal trends in how people react to alcohol interventions when it comes to chronic health disorders.


Study Drawbacks

The study includes a number of restrictions. The accuracy of measures of drinking outcomes may be hampered by the fact that they were based on the results of quick alcohol tests performed in normal medical care. Even after adjusting for several, significant variables from a reputable EHR, there may still be unmeasured confounders that cause residual confounding. Data on BI were restricted to what was recorded in the EHR, similar to other EHR-based research, thus BI quality could not be evaluated. 

Questions were created to encourage patient candor, however data on other factors including alcohol use and exercise were reliant on self-report and susceptible to social desirability bias.It is unknown how well the study's findings generalize to other healthcare systems and populations. 67 KPNC has a well-established EHR and a membership that is racially diverse and reflective of the US population with access to care, allowing researchers to study a sizable population-based sample of patients and providers. Particularly for studies of the T2D group, their analyses looking at interactions between BI and patient variables may not have enough power. 

When evaluating the findings of subgroup analyses looking at potential treatment heterogeneity, there are additional constraints to keep in mind.71 Furthermore, it is outside the scope of the current experiment to examine cumulative and long-term effects of BI, but this is something that has to be done in the future.


Conclusion

Researchers found that alcohol BI may hold promise for reducing drinking and helping in the improvement of health outcomes for patients with hypertension who screened positive for unhealthy drinking in a large healthcare system that implemented systematic primary care-based SBIRT; 

However, similar effects are unknown for patients with Type 2 diabetes. A valuable tool for the arsenal of primary care chronic disease prevention and intervention is the use of BIs as part of a program of systematic screening and BI for harmful alcohol consumption. To comprehend variation among various subpopulations and examine BI's long-term public health effects, more research is required.