Hypertension and Alcohol
It is no longer news that Stroke and Heart disease go hand in hand with high blood pressure. Also, it is no longer news that drinking is not as healthy as many people want to believe it is. Common sense can only tell us that when one combines the two, he/she is headed for double trouble. Statistics have shown that hypertensive men who have a habit of taking 6 drinks or more at a sitting are more likely to become victims of stroke than those that don’t.
The study also found that the risk is about 5 times more if such men take in 12 rinks or more.
Brian Silver, who is a neurologist at Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, Michigan is of the opinion that excessive drinking can only compound issues.
There is yet to be a direct correlation between the 2 because various factors that were not considered such as the timing of the binge drinking and the heart complication. However, the relationship is there and cannot be denied.
There are studies to back up the assertion that one can get an increase in blood pressure, up to 20 points just by drinking alcohol. Particularly for those who are naturally hypertensive, increasing your blood pressure counts can only do you more harm and increase your chances of getting a stroke.
Logically, men with really high blood pressure are the ones with the highest risk. This is serious such that if such men have up to 6 drinks in one sitting, there is an extremely high risk of getting stroke compared to one that doesn’t drink. The relationship between hypertension and alcohol can be said to be directly proportional such that they both move in the same direction.
120/80mmHG or below is what we normally refer to as normal blood pressure while any figure north of 140/90 is considered high. This study referred to severe hypertension or stroke level to be 168/110 or higher.
It is simple, hypertension and alcohol increase the risk of heart attack and fatal stroke. The men who were focused on, in the research already had the probability of dying from heart problems. The study just went ahead to show that with alcohol, the risk is even higher.
Experts aren’t certain why binge drinking might increase cardiovascular risk. It is known that Hypertension damages blood vessels, while the arteries can get hardened by alcohol, thus making the arterial plaques more unstable and this is what leads to heart attacks and stroke.
Silver stated that there is something about alcohol that makes plaque rupture more likely. This may not be applicable to everybody and the research was inconclusive in the area of the female folks because there were too few female binge drinkers in the study area to arrive at a concrete conclusion. Also, the research was done using local South Korean drinks like Soju and Mikkoli. It is yet to be determined if the same result will be gotten from using more refined alcohol.
The excesses of the research and the conditions surrounding it is not an excuse for you to leave your body unattended. Do not risk heart attack or stroke on the grounds that the study didn’t use identical conditions as yours. The AHA has come out to recommend one and two drinks per day for women and men respectively.
Prof. Robert Myerburg of the University of Miami school of Medicine is of the opinion that binge drinking is probably not a good idea, neither is uncontrolled hypertension however, the combination of both is definitely a bad idea. He went on to say that if the figure published are correct, they are quite impressive.
RX Oasis, offers medications for hypertension and alcohol.
