Study Links Wine to Blood Pressure

A new Harvard study may give women an incentive to linger over the occasional glass of wine.

Heavy drinking has long been associated with high blood pressure. Now, researchers have observed a link between moderate consumption of alcohol and a decreased risk of hypertension.

Led by Assistant Professor of Medicine Ravi I. Thadhani, a group of researchers from Massachussets General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital concluded that the relationship between drinking and hypertension follows a particular pattern. Compared to those who don’t drink at all, light drinkers show a moderate decrease in their risk of high blood pressure. But heavy drinkers run a higher risk.

The study was published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“These data refine our understanding of alcohol consumption and risk of hypertension and may be used by primary physicians in counseling young women,” the authors wrote.

For twelve years, the researchers gathered data on nearly 71,000 women.

The authors discovered that women who consumed two to three alcoholic beverages per week were 15 percent less prone to hypertension than non-drinkers.

On the other end of the scale, women who drank an average of 10 to 12 alcoholic beverages per week were 30 percent more likely to develop hypertension. High blood presure is linked with heart attacks, strokes and kidney damage.

Other studies on the link between alcohol and blood pressure have shown similar results. However, this study includes more subjects than the others and took into account patterns of alcohol consumption.

The researchers asked subjects about their drinking habits, differentiating binge and episodic drinking and the types of alcoholic beverages the subjects drank.

The authors found no correlation between binge drinking and a higher risk of hypertension. However, habitual heavy drinkers exhibited higher blood pressure regardless of the type of alcholic beverage consumed.

But the data suggest that drinking beer in moderation may lead to lower blood pressure. The authors said this observation deserves further investigation.

The authors reported several limitations to their data. They used self-reported diagnosis of hypertension and self-reported consumption of alcohol. And some subjects may not have provided accurate data, they said.

In addition, the subjects consisted predominately of white nurses.

Next, the authors say they hope to expand their study to non-white women.