According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 61 percent of adults in 2006 drank alcohol in one form or another. But for some, alcohol can present a number of medical problems, including high blood pressure. According to the CDC, more than 20 percent of people who drink, drink more than five drinks in one day. While this pattern has its own distinctive challenges that won't be addressed in this article, sustained alcohol drinking can have significant effects on people who have high blood pressure (hypertension).
Alcohol and HDL Cholesterol
Despite getting a bad rap from many teetotalers, a glass of wine a day has been purported by many medical experts as a good way to sustain high levels of high density lipoproteins. As part of your total cholesterol (the other type of cholesterol is LDL, or the bad type of cholesterol), HDL helps to offset the risk for heart disease by carrying away LDL cholesterol before it has a change to permanently adhere to the inside of the coronary arteries. Therefore, there is a lot of support for moderate daily drinking in healthy individuals.
Hypertension
According to the American Heart Association, hypertension (also called high blood pressure) affects more than one in four adults in the U.S. Besides those with documented hypertension, more than 30 million Americans have borderline hypertension--blood pressure readings that are higher than 120/80. Up to one-third of these people are not even aware that they have the disease. Often called the "silent killer," high blood pressure is a primary risk factor for heart disease and has no detectable side effects; it is often only discovered through a routine physical examination. These undetected cases put nearly one-third of the American population at risk for heart disease, stroke or kidney failure. Fortunately, it is easily treatable through a program that combines diet, exercise and medications.
Chronic Drinkers of Alcohol
A person who drinks alcohol daily (with or without an official diagnosis of being an alcoholic) puts tremendous stress on his liver by interfering with its ability to metabolize the hormones renin and angiotension which are critical in managing normal blood pressure levels. Chronic alcohol intake also taxes the liver and reduces its ability to perform its primary job--filtering the blood. The result is that the circulating blood contains a number of toxic chemicals that can harm other parts of the body.
How Alcohol Affects the Body
The liver also processes fat in the blood. If the liver is busy metabolizing hormones for blood pressure, it cannot perform its job of managing cholesterol levels. When the liver is overwhelmed by processing alcohol, all of the downstream arteries fail to get the support they need. The result is that the liver cannot process fat, increasing the percent body fat of the drinker--creating another risk factor for heart disease.
Short-Term vs. Long-Term
Drinking any amount of alcohol can have negative effects on blood pressure, according to the Heart Foundation. While the exact way that alcohol affects hypertension is not known, researchers do believe that drinking causes the arteries to constrict. It also stimulates the "fight or flight" mechanism in many people that causes high blood pressure. So, instead of a few drinks helping you to relax (one to two a day), drinking more can actually have the opposite effect. Even when drinkers are not imbibing, alcohol can raise blood pressure by reducing magnesium levels in the blood, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in its 10th Report to Congress on Alcohol and Health in 2000.
