How Binge Drinking Increases Diabetes Risk

In the UK we hear a lot about people binge drinking. We are often told that we are one of the worst countries for over-indulging in alcohol and that it causes a lot of problems for our health and wellbeing. Not everyone agrees on how bad binge drinking is for us, though, and some have suggested that the fuss is less to do with people’s health and more to do with the police and government trying to gain more control.

But now there is important scientific evidence that suggests binge drinking can directly cause insulin resistance, which in turn leads to Type 2 diabetes. It has been known for a long time that people with a history of binge drinking have an increased risk of developing metabolic syndrome and Type 2 diabetes. But until this study it was not clear how the link worked, and whether it was binge drinking alone that raised the risk.

A team of researchers at the Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York studied rats. They found that binge drinking on its own increases risk for Type 2 diabetes, separate from other risk factors like overeating.

The team also found that alcohol appears to disrupt insulin-receptor signalling. This is caused by inflammation in the hypothalamus, an area of the brain that is important for the metabolic processes.

Now that there is this evidence that binge drinking not only causes short-term problems and issues like liver damage, it has also been linked to long-term issues such as diabetes. This may be an opportunity for official bodies to come up with more effective campaigns against the growing trend of binge drinking.