HOW TO LOWER YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE NATURALLY

Part 13 : What about alcohol?

While some studies have indicated that moderate drinking is good for your heart (and we'll look more at the beneficial effects in the next part of this series), it's important not to overdo it if you have high blood pressure.

Heavy drinking tends to increase blood pressure levels and it seems that some people are particularly sensitive to the effects of alcohol on their blood pressure. Researchers at the University of California (in a study published in the journal Hypertension) found that men over 35 who drank the equivalent of 2 double  spirits a day (40g of alcohol) were nearly twice as likely to have problems with high blood pressure than those who didn't drink. The more alcohol that is drunk the greater the effect on blood pressure.

As well as affecting your blood pressure excess alcohol is also likely to damage your health in other ways

• damaging your liver
• increasing your risk of stroke and some cancers
• creating vitamin deficiency (alcohol prevents proper absorption of vitamins especially B vitamins)
• causing toxic effects when mixed with some medication
• potentially leading to alcohol addiction

And not only may excess alcohol be directly harmful to your health, it contains a whopping amount of calories - bad news if you are trying to lose weight to reduce your blood pressure.

Drinking to excess should be avoided whether you have high blood pressure or not, but what does drinking to excess mean? Everyone's definition of excess is different depending on how much you normally drink!

The usual advice in the UK is to drink no more than two units of alcohol a day for women and three for men and to keep two or three days a week alcohol-free. A unit of alcohol is 10g  the equivalent of a small glass of wine (100ml), 50ml sherry, a single measure (25ml) of spirits or a half a pint (300ml) of weak beer.

If you find that once you start drinking you are unable to stop at the recommended limit, it's probably better for your health not to start. Units can't be “saved up” safely for a weekend drinking session. The safe limit is a daily limit. And diluting the alcohol with water or mixers or alternating alcoholic drinks with soft drinks does not prevent the harmful effects of drinking too much in any one 24 hour period. Bingeing on alcohol can cause your blood pressure to rise to a dangerous level increasing the risk of stroke. Every unit of alcohol you drink above the limit is likely to raise your systolic blood pressure by 1.

Seek professional help if you are unable to stop drinking to excess or you have any concerns about your ability to cope with alcohol.

If you are able to stick to moderate levels of drinking, then we'll look at the beneficial effects of consuming some alcohol on your blood pressure and heart in the next part of this series.

The link to the next part of this course will arrive in your email inbox in 3 days. If you have arrived at this page without an email subscription and would like to receive all 30 parts of this course you can subscribe for FREE using the form on the top left of the page. Alternatively if you would like to download the whole course as an ebook so that you can read it and print it out immediately you can do so for just $9.95 - you'll also receive a special bonus (worth $14.95). See Lower Blood Pressure Ebook offer for details.