How does alcohol affect blood pressure?

Consuming alcohol beyond moderate levels (and for some individuals, even at moderate levels) can push blood pressure readings higher, especially when combined with other lifestyle factors like high sodium intake, lack of exercise, or obesity. Ultimately, if you don’t already drink wine, it is not recommended to start solely for its supposed heart benefits. If you do choose to enjoy red wine, moderation is key—typically defined as one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men, though even these guidelines can vary based on individual circumstances. Completely refraining from consuming alcohol lowers the risk of some of the health risks listed above. Although some of those effects can occur without alcohol consumption, avoiding alcohol helps decrease the risks.

• While some research shows that drinking in moderation is healthy, it’s likely that some of the connection comes from the fact that moderate drinkers, in general, have healthier lifestyles and diets.
• Alcohol has been shown to slow down parasympathetic nervous activity and to stimulate sympathetic nervous activity.
• Having more than three drinks in one sitting raises blood pressure for a short time.
• As a result, peripheral resistance and blood volume are increased, leading to elevated arterial blood.
• In this study, alcohol had no significant effect on DBP in the four groups.
• Dai 2002 gave participants five minutes to consume high doses of alcohol and measured outcomes immediately.

Stubbs 1995 published data only

However, the result was heterogeneous; therefore, we are unable to make any implications from this. Low‐dose alcohol consumption had no effect on blood pressure (BP) within six hours, but we found only two trials that studied this dose and no trials that assessed BP after six hours. Low‐dose alcohol increased heart rate (HR) within six hours, suggesting that even one glass of wine increases HR. Unfortunately, we found no studies measuring HR more than six hours after the dose.

This measurement takes into account the systolic blood pressure and the diastolic blood pressure. Alcohol consumption is a well-established contributor to elevated BP, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). The 2025 ACC/AHA High Blood Pressure Guideline recommends nonpharmacological management strategies for high BP, including abstinence or limiting alcohol intake to one or fewer drinks (12–14 g) daily for women and two or fewer drinks daily for men. According to the published protocol, we intended to include only double‐blind RCTs in this review. Because higher doses of alcohol exert specific pharmacological effects on drinkers, we had a few double‐blind RCTs after the first screening.

Rosito 1999.

On the other hand, Fantin 2016 allowed participants to continue drinking during the period of outcome measurement. These differences in alcohol consumption duration and in outcome measurement times probably contributed to the wide variation in blood pressure in these studies and affected overall results of the meta‐analysis. The dose of alcohol had to be reported by study authors for inclusion in the systematic review.

We recorded the washout period of each included study reported by study authors to decide if there was risk of a carry‐over effect. If it was appropriate to combine cross‐over trials with other trials, we used the recommended generic inverse variance approach of meta‐analysis. We tested the effect of cross‐over trials through sensitivity analysis by excluding them from the meta‐analysis to check if the effect estimate changed significantly.

Kojima 1993.

The method of blinding of participants and personnel was not mentioned in Dumont 2010, Mahmud 2002, and Maule 1993. In Cheyne 2004, participants were blinded to the content of the drink, but some reported that they were able to detect the alcohol by taste at the end of the study. It is recommended that there should be at least 10 studies reporting each of the subgroups in question (Deeks 2011).

Data collection and analysis

Alcohol prevents the body’s baroreceptors from detecting a need to stretch the blood vessels and increase their diameter, causing an increase in blood pressure. When blood pressure decreases, these receptors help minimize how much the blood vessels stretch to increase blood pressure. Similarly, when blood pressure increases, these receptors increase the stretching of the blood vessel walls in order to decrease blood pressure. However, regularly having more than 4 alcoholic drinks in a sitting can have a lasting effect on your health. Harlan Krumholz, MD, FACC, JACC Editor-in-Chief and Harold H. Hines Jr Professor of Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, noted that the results challenge long-standing assumptions that low levels of alcohol do not meaningfully affect blood pressure.

Rosito 1999 tested the effects of 15 g, 30 g, and 60 g of alcohol on 40 young medical students. The decrease in SBP was greater with 30 g of alcohol seven hours after consumption compared to placebo and 15 g and 60 g alcohol‐consuming groups. In this study, alcohol had no significant effect on DBP in the four groups.

More RCTs are needed to study the effects of low‐dose alcohol to better delineate the dose‐response effects of alcohol on BP and heart rate. RCTs with measurements more than 24 hours after alcohol consumption are needed to see how long the effect of high‐dose acute alcohol consumption lasts. The magnitude and direction of the effects of alcohol on blood pressure depend on the time after alcohol consumption. Moderate‐certainty evidence shows that acute consumption of medium to high doses of alcohol decreases blood pressure within the first six hours and for up to 12 hours after alcohol consumption.

We also contacted Hering 2011, but the study author did not explicitly mention in the email the method of allocation concealment used. Different types of alcoholic beverages including red wine, white wine, beer, and vodka were used among 32 studies. The dose of alcohol ranged between 0.35 mg/kg and 1.3 g/kg, and alcohol was consumed over five minutes and over one hour and 30 minutes. It is important to note that the dose of alcohol was comparatively higher (≥ 60 g or ≥ 1 g/kg) in nine studies (Bau 2005; Buckman 2015; Hering 2011; Narkiewicz 2000; Rosito 1999; Rossinen 1997; Stott 1987; Van De Borne 1997; Zeichner 1985). The molecular mechanisms through which alcohol raises blood pressure are unclear. Alcohol can affect blood pressure through a variety of possible mechanisms.

Kawano 1992 published data only

• For medium doses and high doses of alcohol, participants represented a range in terms of age, sex, and health condition.
• Dumont 2010 measured blood pressure during the study period, but study authors did not provide the before and after measurement of SBP.
• In contrast, women eliminate alcohol from the body a little faster than men (Thomasson 2000).
• Research shows that regular use of acetaminophen can raise blood pressure, as can nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), including ibuprofen and naproxen.
• The blood alcohol level decreased over time, and 20‐HETE started to rise (Barden 2013).

Alcohol’s effects on blood pressure can range from temporary dips to chronic elevations that increase the risk of serious health problems. While a small glass of red wine might be part of a cultural tradition or family dinner, it’s essential to consume alcohol mindfully, balancing any potential benefits with the very real risks. Staying aware of your blood pressure readings, adopting a healthy lifestyle, and seeking professional guidance if you suspect an alcohol-related disorder can help safeguard your cardiovascular health.

It is a common substance of abuse and its use can lead to more than 200 disorders including hypertension. This review aimed to quantify the acute effects of different doses of alcohol over time on blood pressure and heart rate in an adult population. The authors noted that there was no overall increase in the risk of hypertension with any level of alcohol consumption for African Americans as a group, although in Black women, there was an association between light drinking and higher blood pressure. However, there were far fewer studies that focus on African Americans for the researchers to review, and more research may be needed. Heart rate was increased by 4.6 bpm six hours after drinking alcohol compared to placebo.

Comparison 1. Low‐dose alcohol vs placebo.

Most of the evidence from this review is relevant to healthy males, as these trials included small numbers of women (126 females compared to 638 males). We are aware of one systematic review on effects of alcohol on blood pressure that was published in 2005 (McFadden 2005). McFadden 2005 included both randomised and non‐randomised studies with a minimum of 24 hours of blood pressure observation after alcohol consumption. This systematic review searched only the MEDLINE database for relevant studies, hence it was not exhaustive.

We created a funnel plot using the mean difference (MD) from studies reporting effects of medium doses and high doses of alcohol on SBP, DBP, MAP, and HR against standard error (SE) of the MD to check for the existence of publication bias. Visual inspection of funnel plots shows that the effect estimate is equally distributed around the mean in Figure 4, Figure 5, Figure 6. In Figure 9, Figure 10, and Figure 11, we observed slight asymmetry in the funnel plot that was probably due to heterogeneity rather than to publication bias. We noted some overlap of data points in some funnel plots, indicating that some of the included studies were of similar size. According to Chapter 10 of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (Higgins 2011), a funnel plot asymmetry test should not be used if all studies are of similar size.

You may have read that some alcoholic drinks, like red wine, are better for your health than others. But too much of any type of alcohol will negatively affect your blood pressure. “We focused on understudied groups, particularly women, light-to-moderate drinkers and consumers of different beverage types, to better understand how even low levels of alcohol consumption influence BP management, a critical public health issue.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines light drinking as three drinks or fewer per week and moderate drinking as no more than one drink per day for women and up to two per day for men. Experts have known for a while that heavy drinking — meaning eight or more drinks per week for women and 15-plus per week for men — raises your risk for high blood pressure (a.k.a. hypertension). When blood pressure, the force of blood flowing through your arteries, is consistently high, that ups your risk for heart attack, stroke how does alcohol affect blood pressure and heart failure, as well as vision loss and kidney disease.