A new study released today at the American Society of Hypertension in New York City has focused new attention on the dangers of drinking alcohol for persons with hypertension (high blood pressure). According to the findings announced in the study, even one ounce of alcohol a day can alter heart function for persons with high blood pressure.
The study was performed in Italy by Dr. Leonardo Sechi and his team of researchers. They studied the effects of alcohol on 335 patients who had high blood pressure and no other heart problems of any kind.
The participants fell into three groups: the no alcohol group (172 out of the 335), the up to an ounce a day group, and the more than an ounce a day group.
The findings being reported are somewhat alarming. Those who drank the most had “thicker left ventricular walls, stiffening the chamber and making it function less efficiently,” researchers said.
Signs of heart disease were found in nearly half the participants, which was associated with how much they drank. Since more than half of the group did not drink at all, this finding is very significant. The more the drinkers drank, the more trouble their hearts had properly filling up with blood between each heartbeat, the researchers said.
Sechi and his team are quick to point out that they have not determined how the heart damage occurs, and the study doesn’t establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship between drinking and heart disease. Still, the “evidence” is highly suggestive.
According to the society, one-third of U.S. adults have high blood pressure, and hypertension contributes to more than 350,000 deaths — about 1,000 per day — each year in the United States.
Although the study has been made public, its results will continue to be considered preliminary until it has been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
Scary.
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