Food and medication
Sugary foods and medication
Some medicines raise or lower blood sugar; sugary foods and drinks make the swings bigger.
4 medicines on our checker are affected. Tap a medicine for every food and drink that matters with it.
Take care sugary foods with these medicines
- Amitriptyline
Amitriptyline may affect your blood sugar if you have diabetes; test more often at first.
Where this comes from
“Amitriptyline can make it more difficult to keep your blood sugar stable. If you have diabetes and you usually test your blood sugar levels, you may have to do this more often for the first few weeks of treatment with amitriptyline.”
Information from the NHS website - Corticosteroids · prednisolone, prednisone, dexamethasone
Steroids raise blood sugar. Go easy on sugary foods and drinks.
- GLP-1 agonists · semaglutide, ozempic, wegovy
Sugary foods crowd out the protein you need on a small appetite and can worsen nausea.
- Metformin · glucophage, sukkarto
Sugary foods and drinks push blood sugar up and work against the medicine.
Foods and drinks that count as sugary foods
- Sugary drinks
- Fruit juice
- Smoothies
- Sweets
- Milk chocolate
- Cakes
- Biscuits
- Puddings
- Honey
- Syrup
- Sugar
- White bread
- Energy drinks
- Ice cream
- Jam
- Cereal bars
Common questions
- Which medicines does sugary foods affect?
- 4 medicines on our checker: Amitriptyline (take care), Corticosteroids (take care), GLP-1 agonists (take care), Metformin (take care).
- Which foods count as sugary foods?
- Sugary drinks, Fruit juice, Smoothies, Sweets, Milk chocolate, Cakes, Biscuits, Puddings, Honey, Syrup, Sugar, White bread, Energy drinks, Ice cream, Jam, Cereal bars.
General information from NHS medicine pages and drug labels, not medical advice. Always follow your prescriber, pharmacist or the leaflet with your medicine. How we check.