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(Hypertension. 1999;33:653-657.)
© 1999 American Heart Association, Inc.
Scientific Contribution |
From the Hypertension Unit (M.T.A., A.S., A.C.) and Alcohol Unit (R.E., J.F.-S., A.U.-M.), Department of Internal Medicine, IDIBAPS (Institut d'Investigacións Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer), Hospital Clínic, School of Medicine, University of Barcelona, Spain.
Correspondence to Dr Alejandro de la Sierra, Hypertension Unit, Department of Internal Medicine, Hospital Clínic, 170-Villarroel, 08036-Barcelona, Spain. E-mail iserte{at}medicina.ub.es
| Abstract |
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135 mm Hg or daytime DBP
85 mm Hg) fell from 42%
during alcohol drinking to 12% after 1 month of complete abstinence.
Abstinence did not modify either the long-term BP variability, assessed
by SD of 24-hour BP, or its circadian profile. We conclude that
abstinence in heavy alcohol drinkers significantly reduces BP assessed
by 24-hour ABPM and that this reduction is clinically relevant. These
results show that heavy alcohol consumption has an important effect on
BP, and thus cessation of alcohol consumption must be recommended as
a priority for hypertensive alcohol drinkers.
Key Words: hypertension, alcohol-induced alcohol blood pressure determination blood pressure monitoring, ambulatory
| Introduction |
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A clear physiological mechanism for the alcohol-BP link has not yet been established. Genetic predisposition, increased cardiac output, abnormalities in the renin-angiotensin system or the sympathetic nervous system, and a direct vascular tone effect probably mediated through sodium and calcium transport alterations have all been suggested as possible mechanisms of alcohol-induced hypertension.12 13
Intervention studies have clearly shown that cessation of alcohol drinking reduces office BP in both hypertensive and normotensive alcoholic patients.14 15 16 17 18 However, attempts to reproduce these findings by ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) have shown inconsistent results. Cessation of alcohol intake has been shown not to affect 24-hour BP in alcohol drinkers19 20 21 22 23 or even to increase BP at night,21 leading to speculation that alcohol ingestion does not produce sustained rises in BP but, rather, a transient increase in BP due to an alerting reaction when BP is measured in the clinical setting.19 22 These studies, however, have been conducted in moderate alcohol drinkers and after a period of only 4 to 7 days of abstinence.
The aim of the present study was to assess the effect of 1 month of proven alcohol abstinence on 24-hour BP profile in heavy alcohol drinkers (>100 g of alcohol per day).
| Methods |
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Study Protocol
The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Hospital
and the Spanish Health Authority (Protocol F.I.S. 93/0195). Written
informed consent was obtained from all participants. Alcoholic patients
were admitted into a general hospital ward, and alcohol intake was
maintained at a dose of 0.4 g of pure ethanol (vodka) in 200 mL of
orange juice per kilogram of body weight every 4 hours (except during
sleeping time) (total dose, 2 g/kg). Plasma ethanol concentration was
measured before each dose and averaged 0.26±0.21 g/L. None of the
patients presented signs or symptoms of acute alcohol
intoxication. Twenty-four-hour ABPM was performed between 8
AM and 9 AM. After this procedure was
completed, alcohol intake was stopped and psychological support was
initiated. Withdrawal symptoms were evaluated according to the Clinical
Institute for Withdrawal Assessment (CIWA) scale,24 and
none of the patients scored higher than 15, which is considered
withdrawal syndrome. After 3 days of hospitalization, patients were
discharged and continued follow-up and psychological support.
Compliance with abstinence from alcohol drinking was assessed by direct
interview of the patients and their relatives, repeated urinary alcohol
determinations, and serum
-glutamyltranspeptidase (GGTP) and
erythrocyte mean corpuscular volume measurements. After 1 month of
proven alcohol abstinence, 42 patients (3 patients relapsed and were
excluded from the study) were readmitted to the hospital; a new 24-hour
ABPM was performed in the same environmental conditions as those of the
first measurement, with the patients drinking 200 mL of orange juice
without alcohol addition every 4 hours.
BP Measurements
Twenty-four-hour ABPM was performed twice (during alcohol and
placebo intakes) by use of an automated noninvasive oscillometric
device (SpaceLabs 90207, SpaceLabs Inc). The appropriate cuff was
placed on the nondominant arm, and BP was registered automatically at
20-minute intervals for a 24-hour period. The following
parameters were obtained from each record in the
24-hour period as well as in daytime (8 AM to 10
PM) and nighttime (12 AM to 6 AM)
periods: mean values and SD of systolic BP (SBP), mean BP
(MBP), diastolic BP (DBP), and heart rate (HR). Finally,
day/night ratio was obtained by dividing daytime by nighttime BP.
Statistical Analysis
Values are expressed by their mean±SD or by the 95% CI.
Comparison of BP parameters during alcohol intake and after
1 month of abstinence was performed by paired Student's t
test.
| Results |
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Cessation of alcohol intake reduced BP without affecting its circadian pattern. As shown in Table 1, the reduction of daytime and nighttime BP was of the same magnitude. Further, the BP day/night ratio was not significantly modified after cessation of alcohol intake (Table 2). Figure 1 shows the circadian profile of BP obtained with average hourly BPs during both alcohol consumption and abstinence and shows that both profiles obtained are parallel and that the nocturnal fall of BP is preserved.
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The effect of alcohol abstinence on long-term BP variability was examined by the SD of BP obtained during the 24-hour period as well as during daytime and nighttime periods. Although this measure of variability based on discontinuous measurements has poor accuracy, we did not find differences in BP variability during alcohol consumption and abstinence, as can be seen in Table 3. However, abstinence significantly reduced HR SD, particularly during the 24-hour period. The extent of this reduction was 1.9 bpm (95% CI, 0.9 to 2.9 bpm).
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The decrease in BP after cessation of alcohol consumption was not
significantly correlated with age, daily alcohol intake, or years of
alcohol consumption. However, we observed a direct correlation between
this decrease in BP and baseline BP obtained during alcohol consumption
(Figure 2). In fact, 18 (43%) alcohol
drinkers exhibited ABPM values of high BP (ie, daytime SBP
135
mm Hg and/or DBP
85 mm Hg)25 26 during alcohol
intake. Of this group, 13 (72%) had normalized their BP (daytime BP
<135/85 mm Hg) after 1 month of abstinence.
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| Discussion |
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135 mm Hg and/or daytime DBP
85
mm Hg) became normotensive after cessation of alcohol drinking. Several epidemiological, cross-sectional, and prospective studies have shown a clear relationship between heavy alcohol consumption and BP. In the first Kaiser Permanente study,3 white men drinking 6 or more drinks per day had a BP 10.9/4.5 mm Hg higher than nondrinkers. These findings were confirmed in a second study from the same group5 as well as in other studies in different populations in North America,4 6 Europe,7 8 Australia,10 and Japan.9 Moreover, prospective studies have shown that alcohol drinking is associated with an increase in BP over time1 and with an increased risk of developing hypertension.27 28
Intervention studies14 15 16 17 18 29 30 performed in moderate or heavy alcohol drinkers have uniformly shown a significant decrease of BP with alcohol reduction or abstinence. In the first study by Saunders et al,29 performed in 132 alcoholic patients, the prevalence of hypertension fell from 51.5% during alcohol drinking to 9% after detoxification. Potter and Beevers,14 in a crossover study performed in hypertensive drinkers, found a significant reduction of BP after 4 days of abstinence and a significant rise in BP after 4 days of alcohol reintroduction. These results were confirmed in treated or untreated hypertensive subjects,15 17 18 in normotensive subjects,16 and in more moderate alcohol drinkers.30
In contrast with these uniform results, more recent studies19 20 21 22 23 examining the effect of alcohol consumption on BP by use of ABPM have yielded negative results. Howes et al19 20 did not find any significant change in 24-hour BP during 4 days of alcohol consumption or abstinence in healthy volunteers. Abe et al21 observed that after 7 days of regular alcohol consumption at dinner, BP fell significantly during the first 6 hours after drinking and rose during the next 8 hours without affecting the average 24-hour BP. O'Callaghan et al22 did not find any significant effect of alcohol in office or 24-hour BP in normotensive light drinkers. Finally, Maiorano et al23 reported a slight but not significant decrease in SBP after 1 week of abstinence in heavy alcohol drinkers.
These negative results, in contrast to the previous findings showing significant decreases of BP with alcohol abstinence, have led to the hypothesis that, in fact, alcohol does not have a sustained effect on BP but rather induces a transient increase in BP under the stress of clinical measurement.19 22 Our results showing that abstinence significantly decreases BP by means of ABPM do not support this last hypothesis and are in agreement with the former studies.14 15 16 17 18 29 30
There are several differences between the present study and previous studies using ABPM. First, the number of patients included in the present study is considerably greater than in previous ones. Second, the Australian19 20 22 and the Japanese21 studies included nondrinkers or moderate drinkers. Third, the Italian study,23 the only one including heavy alcohol drinkers, showed a decrease, although not statistically significant, of 7 mm Hg in 24-hour SBP. Fourth, in previous studies, ABPM was performed after a short period of abstinence (between 4 and 7 days), whereas the abstinence period in the present study lasted 1 month. It may be that some alcohol withdrawal symptoms may have influenced the ABPM recordings during the acute abstinence phase in the previous studies.
The results of the present study may be criticized in 2 respects. First, it is possible that the BP measured during alcohol intake may be influenced by some degree of alcohol withdrawal due to the difference between the amount of alcohol that patients were used to drinking and the amount that they drank during ABPM recording. This amount was adjusted to the weight of the patients and not to their usual alcohol intake before inclusion in the study. However, the total dose (2 g/kg in 24 hours) seems enough to assume that alcohol withdrawal symptoms, if present, were minimal. In fact, according to the CIWA scale, none of the patients fulfilled criteria of withdrawal syndrome.24 Moreover, there was no correlation (R=0.099 and R=0.171 for SBP and DBP, respectively) between the BP decrease after abstinence and the usual alcohol intake of the patients.
Second, it is possible to speculate that the second ABPM measurement (after alcohol detoxification) may have yielded low BP values because the patients had been familiarized with the ABPM procedure. This placebo effect, which is relevant in repeated office BP measurements, is almost irrelevant in ABPM measurements performed within a 4-week period when comparing average 24-hour BP values.31 32 Although a slight placebo effect has been described in ABPM measurements during the first hours of the procedure, it only affects the systolic component of BP and its magnitude is <3 mm Hg.32 As shown in Figure 1, this is obviously not the case in the present study in which 24-hour curves during alcohol intake and after cessation of intake were completely parallel. It is not possible to exclude completely a regression to the mean phenomenon as partially responsible for the decrease in BP after cessation of alcohol intake. However, the inclusion of a control group (ie, alcohol drinkers maintained on alcohol intake during 1 month) would have been ethically questionable.
We were unable to show that alcohol consumption produces a change in circadian BP profile as has been suggested by Abe et al.21 However, in contrast with that study in which alcohol was administered in a single dose (1 g/kg) at dinner, we used 5 doses of 0.4 g/kg every 4 hours, except during sleep.
Finally, it is important to note that the magnitude of BP decrease
after detoxification was directly correlated with the initial BP, as
shown in Figure 2. Patients considered hypertensive on the basis of
ABPM criteria (average daytime SBP
135 or daytime DBP
85
mm Hg) showed a decrease in BP of
12.2/10.6 mm Hg for
SBP/DBP, respectively, whereas in normotensive subjects, the decrease
for SBP/DBP was 3.4/3.5 mm Hg, respectively. Further, the
prevalence of hypertension in heavy drinkers was 43%, a figure similar
to that obtained by Saunders et al.29 After alcohol
detoxification, BP was normalized in 14 (72%) of these patients, and
the prevalence of sustained hypertension fell to 12%, a figure similar
to that observed in the general population.
In conclusion, cessation of alcohol consumption in heavy alcohol drinkers significantly decreases BP, assessed by 24-hour ABPM. More than half the patients considered hypertensive may become normotensive after alcohol detoxification. These results show that heavy alcohol consumption has an important effect on BP, and they strengthen the recommendation of alcohol-intake reduction as a priority for those patients with essential hypertension who are usual alcohol drinkers.
| Acknowledgments |
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Received June 25, 1998; first decision July 27, 1998; accepted October 19, 1998.
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