There’s no special diet required while taking Jardiance (empagliflozin), but what you eat matters more than usual because the drug changes how your body handles sugar, fluids, and energy. Jardiance works by flushing excess glucose out through your urine, which affects hydration, infection risk, and in rare cases can trigger a dangerous condition called ketoacidosis. The right eating habits help you get the most benefit from the medication while avoiding its known side effects.
How Jardiance Changes Your Nutritional Needs
Jardiance causes your kidneys to filter out glucose that would normally stay in your bloodstream. That extra sugar leaves your body through urine, which is why the drug helps lower blood sugar and contributes to modest weight loss (around 2.8% to 3.2% of body weight over 24 weeks in clinical trials). But this mechanism also means you’re losing calories and pulling more water into your urinary tract throughout the day. Your eating and drinking habits need to account for both of those shifts.
You can take Jardiance with or without food. It’s typically taken once a day in the morning, and there are no specific meal timing requirements. That said, the dietary choices you make throughout the day directly influence how well you tolerate the medication.
Keep Enough Carbohydrates in Your Diet
This is the single most important dietary consideration with Jardiance. Very low-carb and ketogenic diets are a recognized trigger for a rare but serious condition called euglycemic diabetic ketoacidosis. Unlike typical ketoacidosis, this version can occur even when blood sugar levels look normal, which makes it harder to catch early.
When you severely restrict carbohydrates while Jardiance is already pulling glucose out of your body, you create a double deficit. Your body shifts to burning fat for fuel at an accelerated rate, producing acids called ketones faster than it can clear them. Documented cases have been linked to ketogenic diets, prolonged fasting, skipping meals, and any situation where carbohydrate intake drops significantly. Chronic alcohol use can compound this risk by replacing food calories and creating what researchers describe as a state of chronic carbohydrate deficiency.
There’s no official minimum carb number published for Jardiance users specifically, but the pattern from case reports is clear: extreme carb restriction is risky on this drug. A moderate, balanced approach to carbohydrates is safer than going keto. If you’re considering a low-carb diet for blood sugar management, talk with whoever prescribed your Jardiance about finding a level that’s low enough to help your glucose without pushing you into ketone overproduction.
Stay Well Hydrated
Because Jardiance increases urination, dehydration is a real and common concern. The FDA label warns that dehydration can increase the risk of low blood pressure and notes that Jardiance should be temporarily stopped during any period of reduced fluid intake, whether from illness, fasting, vomiting, or excessive heat exposure.
No specific daily water target in ounces or liters is published in the prescribing guidelines, but the practical takeaway is straightforward: drink more water than you normally would. Keep water accessible throughout the day, pay attention to thirst, and increase your intake during hot weather, exercise, or any illness that causes fluid loss. If your urine is consistently dark yellow, you’re likely not drinking enough.
Limit Sugar to Reduce Infection Risk
One of the most common side effects of Jardiance is genital yeast infections, particularly in women. This happens because the extra glucose passing through your urinary tract creates an environment where yeast thrives. Urinary tract infections are also a concern for similar reasons.
Eating large amounts of refined sugar won’t help here. While the drug is already flushing glucose through your system, keeping your overall blood sugar well controlled reduces the concentration of sugar in your urine and lowers your infection risk. This means prioritizing whole grains, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats over sugary snacks, sweetened drinks, and processed carbohydrates. Good glycemic control is specifically recommended by clinicians to decrease the risk of these infections in people taking SGLT2 inhibitors like Jardiance. Drinking adequate fluids also helps by preventing urine from sitting in the bladder too long.
Be Careful With Alcohol
Alcohol interacts with Jardiance in multiple ways. It can cause unpredictable blood sugar swings on its own, and for people on a glucose-lowering medication, that instability becomes harder to manage. More concerning, alcohol is listed as a trigger for ketoacidosis in Jardiance users. Both heavy drinking and binge drinking are flagged as risk factors in the prescribing information.
Alcohol also contributes to dehydration, which compounds one of Jardiance’s existing side effects. If you drink, keep it moderate and make sure you’re eating enough carbohydrate-containing food alongside it. The manufacturer specifically asks patients to tell their doctor if they drink alcohol very often or binge drink before starting the medication.
What a Practical Plate Looks Like
You don’t need a specialized meal plan, but a few principles make a real difference on Jardiance:
- Include complex carbohydrates at every meal. Brown rice, whole wheat bread, oats, sweet potatoes, beans, and lentils provide steady energy without sharp blood sugar spikes. They also protect against the carbohydrate deficit that raises ketoacidosis risk.
- Fill half your plate with vegetables. Non-starchy vegetables like broccoli, spinach, peppers, and green beans add fiber and nutrients without significantly raising blood sugar.
- Choose lean proteins. Chicken, fish, eggs, tofu, and legumes help with satiety and support the modest weight loss Jardiance promotes.
- Include healthy fats in moderation. Olive oil, nuts, seeds, and avocado support heart health, which is relevant since many people take Jardiance partly for cardiovascular benefit.
- Minimize added sugars and refined carbs. White bread, pastries, sugary cereals, candy, and sweetened beverages spike blood sugar quickly and increase the glucose concentration in your urine, raising infection risk.
Don’t Skip Meals
Skipping meals, fasting for extended periods, or drastically cutting calories while on Jardiance increases the risk of both low blood sugar and ketoacidosis. The medication keeps working whether you eat or not, continuing to flush glucose out of your bloodstream. If your intake drops too low, your body runs short on its preferred fuel and starts breaking down fat at a rate that can become dangerous.
Eating regular, balanced meals throughout the day is one of the simplest ways to stay safe on this medication. If you’re ever unable to eat normally due to illness, nausea, or surgery, that’s a situation where your prescriber may want to temporarily pause the medication.