Alcohol, teens and diabetes

I know that the liver prioritizes alcohol processing before insulin/glucose. […] This prioritization, btw, is what kills a good number of Type 1s in early adulthood.

[EDIT] Forked from Using alcohol to slown down gluconeogenesis

Via hypoglycemia?

yes.

This prioritization, btw, is what kills a good number of Type 1s in early adulthood.

When I read about that, I was astonished and saddened. I feel that part of the problem with teen/young adult drinking in general is the taboo which is placed around it. My heritage is northern European and my parents and grandparents drank responsibly. I was allowed to consume wine with dinner from the age of 5 or so. Of course, it was a teeny sip, perhaps ~5 ml at that age. As I grew older, the amount increased very slowly until reaching 90 ml as a teen.

This attitude taught me to respect alcohol.
To this day, my servings of wine and alcohol are much smaller than is usual in the U.S.

As for T1 teens/young adults, knowledge is power. Hopefully, this forum will help prepare them with the knowledge they need.

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I can tell you from experience that’s not the culture of teen / young adult alchohol consumption anymore… the current trend is that they all try to drink as much as they possibly can without dying

A very narrow door for T1s.

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this is one of my biggest fears. I remember the awful binge drinking in college. For most people it meant a few awful nights and hangovers (or sometimes weeks and weeks of hangovers, for those who were more entrenched in the culture). And then those people were fine. For my son one dumb mistake and his life is over :frowning: Hopefully alcohol culture will somehow have changed by the time he’s a teenager…maybe?

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I feel the same way too about my son. I talk to him about this at least once a month :slight_smile:

Not sure if this will help or hinder.

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Scarey thought. :frowning:

Yeah I’m worried about it across the board when my kids get older and I don’t even have d kids… I was fortunate to not have diabetes at that stage of my life… doesn’t mean I didn’t drink enough to do a lot of really stupid and potentially dangerous things… I don’t think I’m alone in that

I had a similar experience from my Southern European family. I never felt pressure to drink.

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Yes for sure. And it’s not reassuring to imagine how I would have responded to my parents’ attempts to dissuade me from ever binge drinking in college – peer pressure was too strong and their influence was too weak. No question I would have gotten in MAJOR trouble had I been caught drinking while living at home. But in college there was sooo much they didn’t see about my life.

Well if anyone comes up with any great recommendations in that regard before our kids are in college be sure to post them here…

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I don’t think my approach could ever be considered a recommendation, but we are going to teach him how to drink, just like we have taught ourselves how to count carbs etc. I can’t imagine sending him off to college without knowing that he can survive drinking 3 beers and manage it appropriately.

Here is a link to some information:

http://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/d-teens-and-alcohol-no-bull-from-uncle-wil

Our endo offers to teach older teenagers how to deal with alcohol.

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I certainly plan to teach my kids about alchohol and let them have a few experiences under the right circumstances before they leave the house… the problem is by the time they’re teenagers, their parents by default know nothing about anything and their fellow 18 year olds are worldly, well traveled role models with unfathomable life experience in their mind

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At the first Diabetes Unconference, quite a few folks were doing shots out of empty test strip containers…

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Do you have pics? What a great memory!

This is very scary. I guess I’m lucky I never had any affinity for alcohol.

The opportunity to get plastered every weekend during dental school was right there in your face. This was 45 years ago and I’m sure it hasn’t changed. A big difference though was that I never got peer pressure to imbibe, my buddies just figured it was just more for them.

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I didn’t get in on the pics as I was swilling vodka in tumblers, like normal.

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Unfortunately, both sides of mine and my wife’s family have shown an affinity for alcohol. We will be teaching, and hoping reason wins out.

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