Having just one beer or glass of wine a day can increase systolic blood pressure — the “top number” that shows how much pressure blood exerts against artery walls when the heart beats — even in people who don’t have hypertension, a new study suggests.
“Even low alcohol consumption is detrimental to human health,” says senior study author Marco Vinceti, MD, PhD, a professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Medical School in Italy. Dr. Vinceti also serves as an adjunct professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. What Is a Healthy Number for Blood Pressure?
For most adults, blood pressure is considered normal when the systolic reading is less than 120 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) and the diastolic reading is below 80 mmHg, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). People are diagnosed with hypertension when they have systolic blood pressure of at least 130 mmHg or diastolic readings over 80 mmHg.
Alcohol consumption has long been considered a risk factor for hypertension, along with aging, being overweight or obese, leading a sedentary lifestyle, and eating a high salt diet, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The heart health risks of even light drinking are part of why WHO now maintains that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. Drinking Alcohol Can Raise the Risk of Hypertension for People With Other Risk Factors
For the latest study, researchers examined data from seven trials that followed more than 19,000 participants for around five years. None of the participants had hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, or a history of alcoholism or binge drinking when they joined these studies.
All of the participants provided information about their typical drinking habits, based on how many grams of alcohol them consumed in a typical week. Scientists defined one standard drink as 12 grams of alcohol, roughly the amount in a 12-ounce beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine, or a 1.5-ounce shot of liquor. Overall, compared with nondrinkers, systolic blood pressure was 1.25 mmHg higher in people who averaged one daily drink and 4.9 mmHg higher in those who had two drinks a day on average. Similarly, diastolic blood pressure was 1.14 mmHg higher when participants averaged one daily drink and 3.1 mmHg higher when they consumed two drinks a day on average.
Even though slight increases in blood pressure might not necessarily cause people with normal blood pressure to develop hypertension, these increases can still contribute to heart disease at the population level, particularly among individuals who are older adults or have other risk factors for hypertension, Vinceti says. Aging Could Also Increase Blood Pressure Over Time
One limitation of the study is that researchers lacked data to examine how aging might influence the connection between alcohol consumption and increases in blood pressure.
The analysis also wasn’t designed to prove whether or how alcohol might directly cause increases in blood pressure.
Even so, there are clear biological effects that alcohol can have in the body that may make high blood pressure more likely to develop, says Nieca Goldberg, MD, medical director of Atria New York City and a clinical professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, who wasn’t involved in the new study.
Among other things, alcohol can raise levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which can lead to increases in blood pressure and heart rate, says Dr. Goldberg, who is also an AHA expert volunteer. Drinking can also raise blood sugar levels and contribute to weight gain, she adds. 
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