Author: James Anderson

Alcohol: Does it affect blood pressure?

Consuming alcohol can increase the risk of high blood pressure and other metabolic conditions in several ways. For example, alcohol can affect calcium levels, cortisol levels, and baroreceptor sensitivity, all of which can lead to increases in blood pressure. Recent data suggest that moderate and heavy drinking contributes to high blood pressure in men and women. These are heavy drinking, moderate drinking, and binge drinking. Excessive alcohol consumption can increase the risk of several metabolic conditions, including high blood pressure. Keep in mind that alcohol contains calories and may cause weight gain.

This article explains the connection between alcohol and hypertension, explores the effects of different types of alcohol, and discusses safe alcohol consumption. Drinking excessive alcohol is considered one of the most common causes of raised blood pressure. We wanted to quantify the effects of a single dose of alcohol on blood pressure and heart rate within 24 hours of consumption.

Decreasing or eliminating your alcohol intake can lower your chances of developing high blood pressure. It’s important to have regular physical exams, since hypertension is painless and many people don’t even know they have it. Talk to your healthcare provider to discuss your risk factors and if it is safe for you to drink alcohol, even in moderation. If you have high blood pressure, it’s important to discuss any risk factors with your healthcare provider, including alcohol consumption.

Although these trials included adults from 18 to 96 years of age with various health conditions, most study participants were young healthy males. The source of funding was not reported for a majority of the studies. It has also become clear over time that no amount of alcohol is considered safe for consumption, regardless of the type of alcohol. Hypertension leads to an increased risk of other health problems, including stroke, heart attack, and heart disease.

Health benefits of avoiding alcohol

Alcohol prevents the body’s baroreceptors from detecting a need to stretch the blood vessels and increase their diameter, causing an increase in blood pressure. The following sections will look at some of these ways in more detail. Sign up for free and stay up to date on research advancements, health tips, current health topics, and expertise on managing health. © Copyright 2024 Healthgrades Marketplace, LLC, Patent US Nos. 7,752,060 and 8,719,052. Third Party materials included herein protected under copyright law.

Although these values can be helpful, there is some variation in alcohol content. For example, some beers — especially craft beers — can contain about twice as much alcohol as above. When blood pressure decreases, these receptors help minimize how much the blood vessels stretch to increase blood pressure. Similarly, when blood pressure increases, these receptors increase the stretching of the blood vessel walls in order to decrease blood pressure. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a very common condition worldwide. It is also one of the leading causes of cardiovascular disease.

Effect of alcohol on blood pressure

The studies included participants from the United States, Japan, and South Korea. This combination of higher fluid levels in the body and smaller blood vessels increases blood pressure. The unit of measurement for blood pressure is millimeters of mercury (mm Hg).

1. Use of this website and any information contained herein is governed by the Healthgrades User Agreement.
2. The studies included participants from the United States, Japan, and South Korea.
3. Drinking too much alcohol can raise blood pressure to unhealthy levels.
4. A 2018 study, echoed by the World Health Organization (WHO), concluded that no amount of alcohol is safe for consumption, as alcohol leads to a loss of healthy life.
5. Having higher levels of catecholamines causes the body to excrete less fluid through urine.

Another study, this time in the Journal of the American Heart Association, indicates that binge drinking increases blood pressure levels in men but not women. Despite this finding, women should try not to engage in binge drinking. Thus alcohol decreases blood pressure initially (up to 12 hours after ingestion) and increases blood pressure after that. Alcohol consistently increases heart rate at all times within 24 hours of consumption. For low doses of alcohol, we found that one glass of alcohol had little to no effect on blood pressure and increased heart rate within six hours of drinking. The CDC also states that to reduce alcohol-related health risks, adults of legal drinking age should limit their alcohol consumption to two drinks or less a day for men and one drink or less for women.

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However, researchers are still seeking to understand the full impact of certain risk factors. If you drink alcohol, limit consumption to no more than two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women. Generally, one drink equals a 12-ounce beer (5% content), 8-ounce malt liquor (7% content), a 5-ounce glass of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor. If you have high blood pressure, avoid alcohol or drink alcohol only in moderation. For healthy adults, that means up to one drink a day for women and up to two drinks a day for men. We are also moderately certain that high‐dose alcohol decreased blood pressure within six hours, and the effect lasted up to 12 hours.

Having more than three drinks in one sitting temporarily raises blood pressure. Repeated binge drinking can lead to long-term increases in blood pressure. We are moderately certain that medium‐dose alcohol decreased blood pressure and increased heart rate within six hours of consumption. We did not see any significant change in blood pressure or heart rate after that, but the evidence was limited.

The linkage reported in many of these studies may be due to other lifestyle factors rather than alcohol. Like any other dietary or lifestyle choice, it’s a matter of moderation. If you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, your health care professional may advise you to reduce the amount of alcohol you drink. T​here was a particular risk for bias in the studies that met the eligibility criteria, and there is still the potential risk for residual confounding. There are also a number of opportunities to expand on the research, including understanding more about how alcohol intake influences blood pressure among women. One area of interest is how the consumption of alcohol impacts blood pressure.

Researchers were unable to study in-depth the relationship between age, blood pressure, and alcohol intake. There were risks for misclassifications, and it is possible that some participants changed alcohol consumption amounts during the follow-up time. The study also didn’t look at how different types of alcohol influenced blood pressure. Some data relied on self-reporting; further data could include more diverse samples. Drinking too much alcohol can raise blood pressure to unhealthy levels.

This increases the sensitivity of the blood vessels to compounds that constrict them. To understand how much alcohol is too much, it may be helpful to know the definitions of excessive drinking. Each study had to meet strict eligibility criteria, allowing researchers to focus on participants with no previous history of cardiovascular disease. Another potential mechanism is the increase in cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone that regulates the body’s response to stress.

However, even drinking small amounts of alcohol may contribute to high blood pressure. Completely refraining from consuming alcohol lowers the risk of some of the health risks listed above. Although some of those effects can occur without alcohol consumption, avoiding alcohol helps decrease the risks.

Your healthcare provider may recommend a blood pressure medication as well. If you continue to drink, alcohol may reduce the effectiveness of these medications or even cause a serious medical interaction. If you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, you will need to work with your physician to develop a plan to manage it. In some cases, hypertension can be reversed through lifestyle changes, such as eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and reducing or eliminating alcohol intake.