Regularly consuming too many calories can lead to weight gain and therefore obesity, which is a risk factor for heart attack, stroke and type 2 diabetes. The short-term effects of alcohol (headache, nausea, you know the rest) are easy to pinpoint. But there are ways that alcohol affects your body over time that are important to understand. One of the long-term effects of alcohol on your heart is alcoholic cardiomyopathy. This is when your heart-pumping function gets weaker and your heart gets larger due to changes from heavy alcohol use over a long period of time. Whether it’s a glass of red wine with your turkey or toasting champagne for the new year, alcohol definitely becomes more present during the holiday season.
Effects of alcohol on your heart
“If you have high blood pressure, it’s probably in your best interest to drink minimally,” Morledge said. Alcohol also stimulates the release of adrenaline and puts the body in a fight-or-flight mode, leading to elevated blood pressure. To understand how much alcohol is too much, it may be helpful to know what excessive drinking means. This research was a dose-response meta-analysis of seven different nonexperimental cohort studies. Researchers looked at data from over 19,500 participants, allowing for vast information collection. The studies included participants from the United States, Japan, and South Korea.
Effect of alcohol on blood pressure
Various drinks may help a person reduce their blood pressure, such as tea or beetroot juice. A person who has hypertension should avoid consuming too much caffeine or soda. A 2022 study found that people with severe hypertension who drank 2 or more cups of coffee per day had a higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease. However, researchers noted that a 3-week trial was not long enough to determine the long-term effects of drinking 30 grams of aged white wine per day. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that if a person has hypertension, they may have a higher risk of conditions such as heart attack, stroke, and heart disease. One area of interest is how the consumption of alcohol impacts blood pressure.
The unit of measurement for blood pressure is millimeters of mercury (mm Hg). In addition to cutting back on alcohol, you can incorporate other lifestyle changes, such as regular exercise and stress management, to help lower your blood pressure. The type of alcohol doesn’t matter, but rather the frequency of your consumption, according to Sameer Amin, MD, a cardiologist and chief medical officer at L.A.
Does drinking alcohol affect blood pressure?
If you have high blood pressure, do not drink alcohol or don’t drink much alcohol. For healthy adults, that means up to one drink a day for women and up to two drinks a day for men. Drinking too much alcohol can raise pressure on the walls of blood vessels to unhealthy levels. Having more than three drinks in one sitting raises blood pressure for a short time. Binge drinking over and over can cause long-term rises in blood pressure.
- However, Dr. Cho points out that more recent data shows that there may be no amount of alcohol that is truly safe.
- According to the CDC, the reported health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption may be inaccurate.
- Studies have shown that excessive alcohol consumption can worsen blood pressure levels.
- One of the long-term effects of alcohol on your heart is alcoholic cardiomyopathy.
However, further research indicates alcohol can actually cause hypertension. Women should be especially cautious about alcohol, Goldberg says, as they may solution focused worksheets be more likely than men to develop health problems, particularly among young or middle-aged women who have eight or more drinks a week. Individuals who drink alcohol in excess can help improve their overall health by stopping drinking. Alcohol consumption increases the amount of calcium that binds to the blood vessels.
Cortisol increases the release of catecholamines, which are chemicals in the body that help regulate many processes and help keep the body functioning as it should. The following sections will look at some of these ways in more detail. Research indicates that different types of tea may lower blood pressure.
Luke Laffin, MD, cardiologist; co-director, Center for Blood Pressure Disorders, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio. Sign up to our fortnightly Heart Matters newsletter to receive healthy recipes, new activity ideas, and expert tips for managing your health. To further explore the relationship between your ticker and your favorite glass of merlot or IPA, we chatted with cardiologist Leslie Cho, MD. If a person has concerns that they or someone they know might have a dependency on alcohol, they should seek professional advice and support as soon as they can.
A research review from 2022 analyzed studies that gave participants with hypertension 70–250 milliliters (mL) of beetroot juice per day for 3–60 days. She notes that it can cause an enlarged heart (alcoholic cardiomyopathy), which weakens your heart and makes it harder to pump blood. And if you drink heavily and quickly, Goldberg says it can set you up for heart arrhythmias, which are abnormal or irregular heartbeats. Laffin recommends that patients with borderline or uncontrolled high blood pressure at least cut back on alcohol if they’re trying different blood pressure meds or want to treat it with lifestyle changes alone.