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. Most study participants consumed about 200 milliliters (ml) of unsalted tomato juice daily for 1 year.

Hypertension occurs when the pressure of blood against the artery walls becomes higher than normal. There is evidence that reducing alcohol intake can help lower blood pressure in those suffering from hypertension and even prevent its development. Each study had to meet strict eligibility criteria, allowing researchers to focus on participants with no previous history of cardiovascular disease.

Stubbs 1995 published data only

Alcohol has been reported to diminish baroreceptor sensitivity, which is a key factor in regulating blood pressure (Abdel‐Rahman 1985; Rupp 1996). Baroreceptors or stretch receptors are mechanoreceptors located on the arch of the aorta and the carotid sinus. They can detect changes in blood pressure and can maintain blood pressure by controlling heart rate, contractility, and peripheral resistance.

• We did not see any significant change in blood pressure or heart rate after that, but the evidence was limited.
• We created three SoF tables to show the certainty of evidence and the summary of effects on outcomes of interest (SBP, DBP, and HR) for high (Table 1), medium (Table 2), and low doses (Table 3) of alcohol.
• Results from another meta-analysis of 12 cohort studies found a similar dose–response relationship between alcohol consumption and HTN for males.
• Over two billion people drink, with the highest per capita consumption in the European Union (EU).
• Psychologically, however, many people feel low in mood after they’re discharged home, especially following open heart surgery.

James M Wright (JMW) formulated the idea, developed the basis of the protocol, and contributed to data analysis, interpretation of the final result, and editing of the final draft of the review. We graded the overall certainty of evidence using the GRADE approach via GRADEpro GDT software (GRADEpro 2014); we formulated summary of findings (SoF) tables. We excluded 450 trials after reviewing the full‐text articles, and we recorded the reasons for exclusion (see table Characteristics of excluded studies table).

Raises blood pressure

Studies have shown that a reduction in alcohol intake is effective in lowering the blood pressure both in hypertensives and normotensives and may help to prevent the development of hypertension[12,41,95,96]. Heavy drinkers who cut back to moderate drinking can lower their systolic blood pressure by 2 to 4 mm of mercury (mm Hg) and their diastolic blood pressure by 1 to 2 mmHg. Heavy drinkers who want to lower blood pressure should slowly reduce how much they drink over one to two weeks. With moderate doses of alcohol, blood pressure (BP) went up for up to seven hours but normalized after that.

• All studies included an independent individual who was blinded to control and test groups to evaluate and analyse the data.
• ST extracted data, checked data entry, conducted data analysis, interpreted study results, and drafted the final review.
• However this mechanism is implicated more likely in acute alcohol-induced hypertension.

INTERHEART results also suggested that the protective effect of any alcohol use against MI was greater in women and those over age 45. Finally, data from INTERHEART support the finding that the risk of MI is increased in the 24 hours after consumption of 6 or more drinks, suggesting that binge drinking increases MI risk (table 1). Data derived from systematic reviews and meta-analyses suggest that alcohol-dose and CV-health relationships differ for various CV conditions. For example, certain levels of alcohol consumption that lower risk for CHD may increase it for other CV conditions, such as stroke.

Sympathetic nervous system in alcohol-induced hypertension

Hypertension leads to an increased risk of other health problems, including stroke, heart attack, and heart disease. Drinking alcohol may also increase blood pressure for a short amount of time even in healthy people. Keeping blood pressure within a healthy range can reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes. Many factors can increase someone’s risk for high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. However, researchers are still seeking to understand the full impact of certain risk factors. Consuming alcohol can increase the risk of high blood pressure and other metabolic conditions in several ways.

As noted above, chronic alcohol exposure leads to a decrease in mTOR activity, which corresponds to increased markers of autophagy (Lang and Korzick 2014). The autophagy pathway also is rapidly upregulated does alcohol affect bp during ATP depletion, mitochondrial dysfunction, and oxidative stress. Ethanol-mediated increases in autophagy therefore may be an important mechanism underlying the adverse myocardial effects of ethanol.

Berg 2005 published data only

This is a dose-dependent association, as is that with left ventricular hypertrophy. Hence, we conducted additional analyses to see if the very high dose of alcohol (≥ 60 g or ≥ 1 g/kg) had any dose‐related effects compared to lower high doses of alcohol (31 to 59 g of alcohol) (see Table 9). Results suggest that the decrease in BP with very high doses of alcohol is greater compared to lower high doses of alcohol. However, the result was heterogeneous; therefore, we are unable to make any implications from this.