Following successful completion of detox, if a person is or has struggled with alcoholism, it may be time to seek an inpatient or outpatient rehabilitation program to allow further work toward recovery and relapse prevention. Healthcare professionals may recommend people with hypertension decrease the amount of alcohol they consume. Some researchers are involved in organizations with ties to the alcohol industry. For a lot of people on long-term medications, alcohol can make the drug less effective. In many ways, your medical history (and present) can tell you a lot about your future with alcohol.
If you drink regularly, you might feel like alcohol doesn’t affect you as much, but this usually means you’ve developed a tolerance to some of the effects. But it may be worthwhile learning about what counts as binge drinking and whether or not you may be drinking too much and don’t even know it. 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. 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.
High Blood Pressure from Alcohol Consumption
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. Too much alcohol can raise blood pressure and weight, increasing risk of a heart attack, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Senior Cardiac Nurse Christopher Allen finds out more from Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, Consultant Physician and Gastroenterologist at Royal Liverpool University Hospitals. On average, a regular heart rate is about 60 to 100 beats per minute when your body is at rest. But alcohol can lead to your heart rate temporarily jumping up in speed, and if it goes over 100 beats per minute, it can cause a condition called tachycardia. Too many episodes of tachycardia could lead to more serious issues like heart failure or going into irregular rhythms, which can cause heart attack and stroke.
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.
Limiting alcohol intake is advised, and avoiding it is even better,” Vinceti said. 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.
I’ve had heart surgery. When can I drink alcohol again?
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. This increases the sensitivity of the blood vessels to compounds that constrict them. When you drink alcohol, it can lead to an increase in sympathetic nervous system (SNS) excitability. When the SNS is stimulated or “activated” due to stress or alcohol intake, it works harder than usual.
How Does Alcohol Affect Blood Pressure?
“I generally advise patients to try to avoid alcohol intake until we can get the blood pressure controlled,” Goldberg says. An occasional drink may not make a significant difference if your high blood pressure is under good control with medication and/or healthy habits like diet and exercise. When you stop drinking, or reduce the amount you drink, you’ll see rapid improvement in your blood pressure (you should see a reduction within a few days). And if you have a history of high blood pressure, it’s best to avoid alcohol completely or drink only occasionally, and in moderation.
- 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.
- The Dallas-based organization has been a leading source of health information for nearly a century.
- If a person thinks that they might be consuming alcohol at a rate that would classify as moderate drinking, heavy drinking, or binge drinking, they should consider cutting back to improve their overall health and well-being.
Talk to your healthcare provider about how alcohol might interact with your prescription medicines. It’s also important to know that the ways in which alcohol affects your heart will vary from person to person, depending on your age and other conditions you may have. 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. “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.
Some people may also need medication to help manage their blood pressure. Heavier drinking (binge drinking) can also bring on a first episode of arrhythmia; once this has happened for the first time, you’re at an increased risk in the future. Drinking alcohol to excess can cause other serious health conditions, such as cardiomyopathy (where the heart muscle is damaged and can’t work as efficiently as it used to) and arrhythmias (abnormal heart rhythms). And sure, we’ve all had a night here or there where we’ve had one too many and we know it. But it’s important to make sure those nights of overindulgence are the exception and not the rule.
You may have seen headlines that linked having one drink a day to a greater rise in blood pressure with age, compared to people who don’t drink at all. Your doctor will often advise you when it’s safe to start drinking alcohol again, from a medical perspective. Psychologically, however, many people feel low in mood after they’re discharged home, especially following open heart surgery. The last thing The 14 Best Nonalcoholic Drinks of 2024, by Food & Wine you want is for that casual drink after work or glass of wine at dinner to negatively impact your heart health.