About the project

Type 1 diabetes demands much discipline and self-consciousness from those it affects, and certainly makes some aspects of life harder – enjoying alcohol is one of them. Not only can alcohol cloud your judgement and make insulin dosing decisions harder – but it can also affect your blood sugar, often unpredictably! There is much confusion among both physicians and researchers about how exactly alcoholic beverages affect blood sugar – and how to account for them when dosing insulin. As a result, while educating we often take the safest approach and advice avoidance of alcoholic beverages, or careful trial-and-error. However, we believe there is much to learn from the collective experience of those who live with type 1 diabetes and deal with alcohol consumption at least once in a while. This is why T1Drink project was born. You can become a part of it by sharing your experiences with us.

Survey parts infographic

Our study consists of 5 parts/questionnaires:

Parts 1-3 focus on who you are, your knowledge and history with diabetes, as well as general experience concerning alcohol use. Not all questions in these parts are mandatory, as we know some topics might be sensitive. Please consider, however, that we do not collect any personal or identifying data, so all your answers will be kept as anonymous. Please, fill in these questionnaires only once – even if you make a mistake, do not try to complete them a second time! All parts of the survey can be filled in separately and not all of them are obligatory, however we highly encourage you to take part in each one of them. PART 1 is of significant importance; without it we will not be able to analyze your answers properly. Please take this into consideration.

Part 4 focuses on your recent consumption of alcohol and it takes up to 5 minutes to complete. This part is not mandatory, but will be extremely helpful to us a3nd will let us see how people with type 1 diabetes manage alcohol consumption in real life. If you want to fulfill this questionnaire, please enter your ID from previous parts, so that we can match those answers to the previous ones. If you would like to report more than one event of alcohol consumption – please do so! This questionnaire can be filled as many times as you want.

Part 5 allows you to share data from your CGM device (continuous glucose monitoring device, including flash glucose monitoring). Those records can help us to take a very accurate glimpse at your glucose levels when and after you were drinking alcohol, as well as on regular basis. If you have an appropriate CGM file covering at least two weeks with at least one day when you consumed alcohol – please share it with us via this website. If you do not know how to generate a CGM file for your device – go here. You may also ask your doctor (who helps you manage your diabetes) for help – to upload the file for you they will need to re-generate your ID on the page. If you would like to send CGM files covering more than one event of alcohol consumption – please do so! You can enclose as many CGM files as you want (but please upload them separately!).