Degree of alcohol intake corresponds to hypertension risk in diabetes
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Moderate and heavy alcohol consumption were linked with hypertension in patients with type 2 diabetes and elevated CV risk, researchers found.
“These findings suggest that discussions with patients about how their alcohol consumption interacts with their blood pressure are important, even if the patients are only moderate drinkers,” Matthew J. Singleton, MD, MBE, MHS, MSc, chief electrophysiology fellow at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, told Healio.
For the analysis published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, Jonathan J. Mayl, MD, internal medicine resident at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and colleagues analyzed data from 10,200 participants from the ACCORD trial aged 40 years and older with type 2 diabetes and elevated CV risk. Researchers measured BP at baseline and collected self-reported information on alcohol intake per week.
“Patients with diabetes have high cardiovascular risk and frequently have hypertension, so understanding how we can keep patients with diabetes as healthy as possible and decrease their risk of hypertension is critically important,” Singleton said in an interview. “Since prior research has demonstrated that heavy alcohol consumption is linked with hypertension, we sought to explore the relationship between various levels of alcohol consumption and the risk of hypertension in patients with diabetes.”
Participants were then categorized by weekly alcohol intake: no drinks (n = 7,767; mean age, 63 years; 55% men), light (one to seven drinks; n = 2,124; mean age, 63 years; 78% men), moderate (eight to 14 drinks; n = 232; mean age, 63 years; 100% men) or heavy (15 or more drinks; n = 77; mean age, 63 years; 100% men). BP was categorized as normal, elevated, stage 1 hypertension and stage 2 hypertension according to the definitions in the 2017 American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology hypertension guideline.
Light alcohol consumption was not linked with elevated BP (OR = 1.11; 95% CI, 0.92-1.31), stage 1 hypertension (OR = 1.11; 95% CI, 0.85-1.45) or stage 2 hypertension (OR = 1.02; 95% CI, 0.88-1.19).
Moderate alcohol consumption was associated with elevated BP (OR = 1.79; 95% CI, 1.04-3.11), stage 1 hypertension (OR = 1.66; 95% CI, 1.05-2.6) and stage 2 hypertension (OR = 1.62; 95% CI, 1.03-2.54). An association to a greater degree was observed in participants with heavy alcohol consumption with regards to elevated BP (OR = 1.91; 95% CI, 1.17-3.12), stage 1 hypertension (OR = 2.49; 95% CI, 1.03-6.17) and stage 2 hypertension (OR = 3.04; 95% CI, 1.28-7.22).
“Further research is needed to establish the cause-and-effect relationship between alcohol consumption and hypertension, so a trial comparing blood pressures between patients advised to decrease their alcohol consumption and patients who are not advised to lower their consumption would be helpful,” Singleton told Healio.
For more information:
Matthew J. Singleton, MD, MBE, MHS, MSc, can be reached at 1 Medical Center Blvd., Winston-Salem, NC, 27157.
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