Binge drinking increases morning-after heart rate, nervous system reactivity to BP
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Key takeaways:
- Bringe drinking was associated with increased morning-after heart rate and sympathetic transduction to BP.
- This data may elucidate yet another mechanism by which alcohol impacts CVD risk.
Adults assigned to an evening of binge drinking alcohol experienced elevations in heart rate and sympathetic transduction to blood pressure the following morning, researchers reported.
A randomized controlled study to investigate the impact of binge drinking on sympathetic transduction of muscle sympathetic nerve activity to BP was published in Hypertension.
“Our motivation for this study is the under appreciation for the detrimental effects of alcohol on sleep and hypertension risk, and the lack of pragmatic study designs that have looked at these relationships at night and the following morning when majority of adverse CV events happen,” Jason R. Carter, PhD, Dean of the Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences at Baylor University, told Healio. “There has been a major spike in alcohol consumption post-COVID, and this is a major societal health challenge we need to address.”
Binge drinking participants and trial design
The study was a randomized, fluid-controlled, crossover trial in which researchers enrolled 26 healthy adults at Michigan Technological University and Montana State University (mean age, 25 years; 14 women) who were randomly assigned to an evening binge alcohol dose or control, each separated by 1 month.
The researchers wrote that evaluating muscle sympathetic nerve activity via microneurography could be important because sympathetic outflow alone does not inform end-organ responses or transduction to BP.
“A surge of the sympathetic nervous system — which is our flight-or-fight response — has a very immediate and direct impact on constricting blood vessels, which in turn impact BP,” Carter told Healio. “Demonstrating that evening alcohol leads to a more aggressive morning surge of BP during a given sympathetic surge is novel and really important.”
On the day of testing, breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner were provided, and participants assigned to evening binge alcohol were administered the dose. Alcohol administration began at 8 p.m., which consisted of a 1:3 ratio of 95% ethanol to fruit juice — orange or cranberry — until participants’ blood alcohol concentration exceeded 0.08%, the legal limit for intoxication. The control arm received fruit juice masked with an alcohol mist and administered at the same interval as the binge alcohol arm.
The next morning, participants underwent autonomic CV testing with assessment of muscle sympathetic nerve activity, beat-to-beat BP and heart rate during a 10-minute rest period and a 2-minute cold pressor test, the latter of which also included sympathetic transduction assessment.
Morning-after CV impact of binge drinking alcohol
The researchers reported that evening binge drinking increased heart rate compared with the controls (64 bpm vs. 60 bpm; P = .01) but did not significantly impact resting mean arterial pressure (80 mm Hg in both groups; P = .857) or muscle sympathetic nerve activity (18 bursts per minute for control vs. 20 bursts per minute for alcohol; P = .283).
However, binge drinking alcohol was associated with significant elevations in sympathetic transduction to mean arterial pressure (P = .003), diastolic BP (P = .01) and total vascular conductance (P = .004) after rest as well as elevated sympathetic transduction during the cold pressor test (P = .002).
“Binge drinking not only negatively impacts sleep, but also negatively impacts the morning after sympathetic-CV coupling that is critical to BP control,” Carter said. “This new mechanism might help explain why alcohol abuse and disorders are linked to higher prevalence of hypertension and CV risk, allowing researchers and physicians to pursue novel preventative and therapeutic strategies to lower CV risk.”
All participants reported being nonsmokers without diabetes or any known cardiometabolic or autonomic disorders and all reported at least one episode of binge alcohol drinking — four to five drinks within 2 hours— in the previous 6 months but not having an alcohol use disorder.
To rule out participants with sleep disorders, all completed at-home overnight sleep apnea tests as well as a laboratory sleep study, if eligible.
All women participating were verified to be in early follicular or midluteal phase of their menstrual cycles, as menstruation could also impact muscle sympathetic nerve activity, according to the study.
For more information:
Jason R. Carter, PhD, can be reached at jason_carter1@baylor.edu.
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