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Heavy drinking
raises blood pressure in older men
regardless of “good” cholesterol
Newswise — A large new
Japanese study suggests that middle-aged men
who drink heavily could see their blood
pressure rise, regardless of whether their
levels of “good” cholesterol also go up.
Study author Ichiro
Wakabayashi also found that the older men
who participated — all in their 50s — were
more susceptible to the blood
pressure-boosting effects of heavy drinking
than younger men.
While there are signs
that drinking can be good for the heart and
boost good cholesterol levels, “this
emphasizes that alcohol is not for
everyone,” said Kenneth Mukamal, M.D., an
assistant professor of medicine at Harvard
Medical School who is familiar with the
study findings.
“This really fits well
with the observation that the risk of stroke
— which is more sensitive to blood pressure
than heart attack — is not really
substantially lower in moderate drinkers,”
Mukamal said. According to him, an increase
in blood pressure might eliminate any
benefit from higher levels of good
cholesterol.
Wakabayashi, of the
Hyogo College of Medicine in Japan, launched
the study to explore whether high-density
lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol — which is
thought to protect the heart from disease —
might play a role in how drinking affects
blood pressure in men.
He looked at two groups
of male workers, one 20 to 29 years old and
the other 50 to 59 — in all, 21,301
subjects. All had periodic health
examinations.
Young drinkers with low
HDL cholesterol levels were no more likely
to have high blood pressure than were
nondrinkers with similar cholesterol levels.
However, young men who
drank heavily and had higher levels of HDL
were more likely than nondrinkers were to
have high blood pressure, suggesting that
the “good” cholesterol did not stop the bad
effects of drinking.
When looking at men of
all ages, those with the lowest level of
good cholesterol had the highest blood
pressure in all three groups: nondrinkers,
moderate drinkers and heavy drinkers.
However, high levels of good cholesterol HDL
did not do as much for the heavy drinkers.
Among older men, blood
pressure was “significantly higher” in both
light and heavy drinkers, regardless of
their HDL cholesterol levels, according to
the study. Author Wakabayashi was not
available for comment.
The findings appear in
the September issue of the journal
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental
Research.
So should men of a
certain age stop drinking? It all depends on
how much they are imbibing, said Arthur
Klatsky, M.D., senior consultant in
cardiology at the Kaiser Permanente Medical
Center in Oakland, Calif.
In middle-aged and
older people who have reached the ages when
heart attacks are more common, “light to
moderate drinking appears to reduce that
risk,” said Klatsky, who studies alcohol use
and is familiar with the study findings.
On the other hand,
Klatsky said, “people who drink a lot of
alcohol ought to drink less or quit. This
study doesn’t affect that message one way or
another.”
Alcoholism: Clinical
and Experimental Research:
Contact Mary Newcomb at (317) 375-0819 or
mnewcomb-acer@earthlink.net or visit
http://www.alcoholism-cer.com
Wakabayashi I. Blood
HDL cholesterol levels influence association
of alcohol intake with blood pressure in
young men but not in middle-aged men.
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental
Research 31(9), 2007
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