Alcohol and Hypertension

Most epidemiologic studies suggest that alcohol consumption is associated with increased blood pressure levels and an increased prevalence of hypertension. A review of experimental studies of the blood pressure effects of acute alcohol administration to man and acute and chronic administration to animals does not clearly support the epidemiologic findings, which suggests that other direct or indirect factors besides a simple pharmacologic effect of alcohol may be operative. Several endocrine and renal mechanisms have been postulated, and indirect factors related to both alcohol use and blood pressure pathogenesis cannot be firmly excluded. Preliminary data from the Lipid Research Clinics (LRC) population studies generally show a positive association between alcohol and blood pressure, although women and young men reporting no alcohol use had higher systolic pressures than those reporting low levels of alcohol intake. LRC findings also suggest that the blood pressure elevations associated with use of oral contraceptives appear to be independent of those associated with alcohol. Some preliminary epidemiologic findings and circumstantial evidence suggest that the alcohol-blood pressure relationship may be due in part to the timing of blood pressure measurement during physiologic alcohol withdrawal. Although further verification is needed, this hypothesis implies that the pattern of alcohol consumption and the interval between last use and blood pressure measurement may be as important as the amount of alcohol consumed in explaining the relationship between alcohol and blood pressure.