4 Foods and Drinks to Avoid While Taking Glipizide
Key takeaways:
Glipizide is a medication that can help treat Type 2 diabetes. It helps the pancreas release more insulin, which in turn helps control blood sugar levels.
There aren’t any foods or drinks that interact directly with glipizide. But certain foods can make it harder for glipizide to control blood sugar levels.
Avoid alcohol, refined grains, and sugary drinks while taking glipizide. These items can affect your blood sugar and prevent diabetes medications from working as well as they can.
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Glipizide (Glucotrol) is one of several oral medications that can help treat Type 2 diabetes. Some people take glipizide alone to treat diabetes, but it can also be combined with other medications, like metformin.
There aren’t any foods or drinks that interact directly with glipizide. That means there aren’t foods or drinks you absolutely can’t consume while taking glipizide.
But glipizide works best when paired with a diabetes diet that focuses on keeping blood sugar levels within a healthy range. Some foods and drinks can raise blood sugar levels and make it harder for glipizide to work. It’s best to avoid these items so that you get the maximum benefit from your medication.
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Here are four foods and drinks to avoid while taking glipizide.
1. Alcohol
Alcohol — whether in beer, wine, or distilled spirits — can affect your health in many ways. Experts note that there’s no amount of alcohol that’s completely safe to drink. Alcohol can increase your risk of developing cancer and other health conditions.
And studies show that if you’re living with diabetes, alcohol can also affect your body’s ability to keep your blood sugar in a healthy range.
Combining alcohol with glipizide can lead to hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). Hypoglycemia can be dangerous if it’s not spotted and treated right away. You’re at higher risk for developing hypoglycemia if you drink alcohol on an empty stomach.
Also, heavy alcohol use can damage your pancreas and liver. Over time, this can lower your body’s ability to produce and respond to insulin. This leads to worsening blood sugar levels, even if you’re taking your diabetes medications as prescribed.
Heavy alcohol use is defined as:
For men: 5 or more drinks per day, and 15 or more drinks per week
For women: 4 or more drinks per day, and 8 or more drinks per week
Learn more about glipizide: If you’ve been prescribed glipizide for Type 2 diabetes, you might have some questions. Pharmacists discuss the best time to take glipizide, plus other tips.
Know your options: Many oral medications can treat Type 2 diabetes, including metformin, sulfonylureas, and more. Here’s how oral Type 2 diabetes medications compare.
Are you also taking metformin? Here’s what foods and drinks you should avoid while taking metformin.
So consider cutting down — or eliminating — alcohol if you’re taking glipizide. It can improve your blood sugar levels and lower your chances of developing cancer and other health conditions.
2. Sugary drinks
Many drinks contain a lot of sugar, often in the form of high-fructose corn syrup. These high-sugar drinks can raise your blood sugar levels very quickly. That’s because your body is able to digest these simple sugars faster than more complex sugars and carbohydrates in food.
Rapid increases in your blood sugar levels make it harder to keep your diabetes under control. These spikes also make it more difficult for glipizide to keep your blood sugar in a healthy range over the course of the day.
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Consider cutting out sugar-sweetened beverages, like:
Fruit juice
Sweetened sports drinks
Sweetened energy drinks
Sweetened tea or coffee
Regular soda
If you’re not sure whether your favorite drinks contains added sugar, check the nutrition labels for these ingredients:
Raw sugar, cane sugar/juice, brown sugar
Date sugar, beet sugar, coconut sugar
Honey, agave, molasses, maple syrup
Fructose, glucose, maltose, sucrose
Corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, malt syrup
Invert sugar (a liquid sweetener that’s half glucose and half fructose)
3. Refined grains
Refined grains are grains that have been heavily processed in order to improve their texture and shelf life. The refining process also strips grains of important nutrients, including fiber.
Refined grains are quickly broken down by the body into sugar. This leads to spikes in blood sugar and insulin levels, which can make it harder for glipizide work as well as it should.
Examples of refined grains include:
White flour
White bread
White rice
Many baked goods, breads, and breakfast cereals are made with refined grains. Experts recommend that people with diabetes substitute refined grains with whole grains. Whole grains are absorbed more slowly by the body, so they don’t trigger swings in your blood sugar levels.
Examples of whole grains include:
Corn and cornmeal
Oats and oatmeal
Brown rice
Wheat
Rye
Quinoa
Farro
Millet
Barley
Teff
Try switching your favorite carbohydrates for a whole-grain option.
4. Processed meat
Processed meats have been linked to high cholesterol and certain types of cancer. They’ve also been linked to insulin resistance. This may be why people who eat more processed meat and red meat are more likely to develop diabetes.
If you’re living with diabetes, increased insulin resistance will make it harder to keep your blood sugar levels in a healthy range. Insulin resistance also makes it harder to see the full effects of glipizide and other diabetes treatments.
It’s best to avoid processed meat and to limit red meat if you’re living with diabetes. Examples of processed meat include:
Bacon
Sausages
Beef jerky
Corned beef
Ham
Salami
Hot dogs
Canned meat
Instead, opt for lean meats like chicken, turkey, and fish. You can also substitute plant-based proteins for meat products.
The bottom line
Glipizide is a medication that helps treat Type 2 diabetes. It works by increasing how much insulin the pancreas releases. There are no foods or drinks that directly interact with glipizide. But some foods and drinks can raise blood sugar levels and increase insulin resistance. This makes it harder for glipizide and other diabetes treatments to work as well as they can. Avoid alcohol, sugary drinks, processed meat, and refined grains while taking glipizide. This will help you get the most out of your glipizide treatment.
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References
American Diabetes Association. (n.d.). Alcohol and diabetes.
Anderson, B. O., et al. (2023). Health and cancer risks associated with low levels of alcohol consumption. The Lancet Public Health.
Assistant Secretary for Health. (2025). Alcohol and cancer risk. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Basiak-Rasala, A., et al. (2019). Food groups in dietary prevention of Type 2 diabetes. Annals of the National Institute of Hygiene.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023). Rethink your drink.
Li, C., et al. (2024). Meat consumption and incident Type 2 diabetes: An individual-participant federated meta-analysis of 1·97 million adults with 100 000 incident cases from 31 cohorts in 20 countries. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. (2025). Understanding alcohol drinking patterns. National Institutes of Health.
Steiner, J. L., et al. (2015). Impact of alcohol on glycemic control and insulin action. Biomolecules.
Zelber-Sagi, S., et al. (2018). High red and processed meat consumption is associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and insulin resistance. Journal of Hepatology.
