Moderate alcohol drinking with meals is related to lower incidence of type 2 diabetes

BACKGROUND: Previous studies on alcohol drinking and health largely have ignored the potential impact of the timing of drinking.

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to investigate the joint associations of the timing of alcohol intake with respect to meals (i.e., with meals or outside of meals) and the amount of alcohol consumed with the risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D).

METHODS: A total of 312,388 current drinkers from the UK Biobank without T2D at baseline were included. Cox proportional hazards models were used to examine the association between the timing of alcohol intake with respect to meals and the risk of T2D.

RESULTS: During a median of 10.9 y of follow-up, 8598 incident cases of T2D were documented. After adjustment for covariates and the amount of alcohol consumed, consuming alcohol with meals was significantly associated with a 12% lower risk of T2D (HR: 0.88; 95% CI: 0.83, 0.93) than was consuming alcohol outside of meals. In addition, we found that the timing of alcohol intake with respect to meals significantly modified the relations between the amount of alcohol consumed and risk of T2D (P-interaction = 0.017); the beneficial association of moderate drinking with T2D risk was only observed in participants who consumed alcohol with meals, but not in others. Further analyses on various types of alcoholic beverages indicated that the beneficial associations between alcohol drinking with meals and T2D were mainly driven by wine consumption. Moreover, we found that when consumed together with meals, drinking more wine, rather than other alcoholic beverages, was related to lower concentrations of C-reactive protein.

CONCLUSIONS: In current drinkers, moderate drinking of alcohol, especially wine, with meals is associated with a lower risk of T2D.