A surprising new addition to blood pressure guidelines

For as long as you can probably remember, you have always been told it’s OK to drink alcohol in moderation. But new guidelines say otherwise if you have or want to avoid high blood pressure.

Newly released high blood pressure guidelines from the American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology still include many familiar heart health prevention tips but now list a stricter take on alcohol consumption. They recommend ideally abstaining from alcohol entirely or drastically cutting back on your normal consumption to help prevent or treat high blood pressure, which is defined as a reading of 130 mm Hg /80 mm Hg or higher. Unmanaged high blood pressure can contribute to conditions like heart attack, heart disease and stroke.

Previously, AHA guidelines from 2017 recommended that men limit their alcohol consumption to two drinks per day and one drink per day for women, if any. If you do choose to drink alcohol, this recommendation stands true. However, it’s still best to keep your intake minimal to prevent negative health consequences.

Dr. Prentiss Taylor, an internal medicine physician at Advocate Health Care and a member of the national committee that produced the new guidelines, explains why the change was made: “Newly published research studies analyzed 19,548 participants in multiple countries which showed a convincing linear increase in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure with any level of alcohol intake. The new guidelines encourage health care providers to start asking patients who have unexpectedly high blood pressure about their drinking habits. This wasn’t as big of a focus before but is now seen as a major contributing lifestyle factor.”

Other contributing lifestyle factors:

• Eating a diet high in sodium or saturated fats
• Smoking
• Lack of physical activity
• Stress
• Lack of sleep

If you do decide to cut back on alcohol, it’s important to make sure you are following correct portion sizes.

“The official definition of ‘one drink’ is 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits,” Dr. Taylor explains. “However, in the U.S., we are used to large food and beverage portion sizes where it’s common that ‘one’ serving is actually the equivalent to two drinks. I personally have modified my own pouring habits to sip one-fourth of a glass of wine slowly to be better at counting my alcohol intake.”

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