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Can High Blood Pressure Be Due To Alcohol?
Hi. My dad just turned 55 this week and had his blood pressure checked. Just once and it was 155 over 107. This kind of worries me and him. Hes slightly over weight but has muscle. Hes one of those fat built guys. He has a bad habit of eating before bed because he works afternoon shifts and has been drinking 4-5 beers everynight the last while. Can the beer cause high blood pressure? Lack of sleep? Poor eating habits? Hes going by the nurses office at work weekly now to make sure his blood pressure has been going down. Hes stopping drinking and bad eating. What else can you suggest?
Tue, 8 Sep 2015
Greetings! Welcome to HCM and thank you for your question. I understand your concern.
An episode, or constant episodes, of recreational or binge drinking, indeed can cause blood pressure to go high. Now, if this was happening to a youngster or, let us say, to a person in his thirties, then this would be a closed discussion and we would attribute the high blood pressure to the alcohol intake. However, an age of 55 years old, is an age of risk for developing high blood pressure (hypertension) as a disease and there are cases that some ambient factors can trigger this condition. The high diastolic blood pressure (the lower number) indicates that there might be an ethanol mechanism to this high blood pressure. Being at the age it is, I would recommend that also a 24-hour blood pressure monitor should be done, to precisely confirm or exclude this diagnosis, and then make assumptions and decisions to what or who can be the culprit of this high blood pressure. Feel free to ask us again or consult his attending doctor about the results of the test.
I hope this was helpful. Take care.
Kind regards,
Dr. Meriton
An episode, or constant episodes, of recreational or binge drinking, indeed can cause blood pressure to go high. Now, if this was happening to a youngster or, let us say, to a person in his thirties, then this would be a closed discussion and we would attribute the high blood pressure to the alcohol intake. However, an age of 55 years old, is an age of risk for developing high blood pressure (hypertension) as a disease and there are cases that some ambient factors can trigger this condition. The high diastolic blood pressure (the lower number) indicates that there might be an ethanol mechanism to this high blood pressure. Being at the age it is, I would recommend that also a 24-hour blood pressure monitor should be done, to precisely confirm or exclude this diagnosis, and then make assumptions and decisions to what or who can be the culprit of this high blood pressure. Feel free to ask us again or consult his attending doctor about the results of the test.
I hope this was helpful. Take care.
Kind regards,
Dr. Meriton
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