Heart and Blood Pressure

Long-term effects of alcohol use

There is an opinion that light to moderate alcohol use (up to one standard drinkA drink containing 10 grams of alcohol. per day for women and up to two standard drinks per day for men) can, in older age groups, reduce risk of developing and dying from coronary artery disease (narrowing and blockage of the arteries supplying blood to the heart because of the build up of fatty deposits inside the walls of the arteries (atherosclerosis), which can cause angina and heart attacks). This appears to be because small quantities of alcohol alters the lipids and clotting factors in the blood to make them protective against heart disease.[9, 11, 31, 32]

However, heavy drinking (both chronic and a pattern of heavy drinking sessions) increases the risk of coronary artery disease.[9, 33] Heavy drinking (chronic and/or at a single session) is also associated with sudden death from heart failure, irregular heartbeats and chronic disease of the heart muscle (dilated cardiomyopathy). Dilated cardiomyopathy leads to heart failure, where the heart can no longer pump blood around the body effectively. [9, 31, 33, 34]

Heavy chronic alcohol use is also linked to high blood pressure, particularly in men.[9, 29, 33] Blood pressure increases with drinking more than two or three drinks a day on average and restriction of alcohol lowers the blood pressure.[29]

Drinking alcohol in order to ‘protect the heart’ is not advisable, given that alcohol is an addictive drug that causes cancer, increases the risk of injury and causes damage to the fetus in pregnant women. Heavy drinking actually increases the risk of heart disease and people can find it difficult to limit their drinking to one or two standard drinks a day.[33] People who have risk factors for or have established heart disease should focus on other factors such as cigarette smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, overweight and physical inactivity. Young and middle-aged adults, especially women, are more likely to experience harm than benefit from alcohol use due to risk from injury and, for women, increased risk from breast cancer.[35, 36]