Alcohol Consumption and Blood Pressure

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
We studied blood pressure in relation to known drinking habits of 83,947 men and women of three races (83.5 per cent white). Using health-checkup questionnaire responses, we classified persons as nondrinkers or according to usual daily number of drinks: two or fewer per day, three to five per day, or six or more per day. As compared to nondrinkers blood pressures of men taking two or fewer drinks per day were similar. Women who took two or fewer drinks per day had slightly lower pressures. Men and women who took three or more drinks per day had higher systolic pressures (P-24 in white men, and -12 in white women), higher diastolic pressures (P-24 in white men, and -6 in white women), and substantially higher prevalence of pressures ≥160/95 mm Hg. The associations of blood pressure and drinking were independent of age, sex, race, smoking, coffee use, former "heavy" drinking, educational attainment and adiposity. The findings strongly suggest that regular use of three or more drinks of alcohol per day is a risk factor for hypertension. (N Engl J Med 296:1194–1200, 1977)

This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit: