The Effects Of Alcohol to Blood Pressure
Once you consume alcohol, it does not go through digestion in your digestive system. That means that it is rapidly absorbed from your gastrointestinal tract (GI tract), travels via the bloodstream, and is taken up by various body tissues. Short-term effects occur when you drink several alcohol drinks in one sitting. Long-term effects, on the other hand, are chronic, and they occur when you drink the alcohol regularly in large amounts. The kind of effect that alcohol has on your blood pressure is determined by whether you consume it occasionally or chronically, and the amount you consume per one sitting. Here are three different types of effects:
Small Amount Lowers Blood Pressure
Small doses of alcohol have a healthy effect on the blood pressure. It has been proven that taking small doses of alcohol is able to lower your blood pressure by between 2 and 4 mm Hg. Small doses here is when a woman takes up to one alcohol drink a day, and men consume up to two drinks a day. With that said, it is not advisable to start drink alcohol—if at all you don’t drink already— just because of its positive effect on the blood pressure.
Short-term Effects of Taking Large Amount of Alcohol
Taking alcohol in large doses has the reserve effect of taking this drink in small doses. A person is said to have taken alcohol in excess if a woman takes more than one drink in a day and man takes more than two drinks in a day. Taking excess alcohol raises your blood pressure.
Now, a large amount of alcohol raises your blood pressure if you took a lot if it in one sitting. In such a case, the spike in blood pressure will happen immediately, but the effect is temporary. If you are on medication to lower the blood pressure, taking alcohol can interfere with drugs and make them less effective, which means the blood pressure of the patient will rise even more.
Long-term Effects of Taking Large Amount of Alcohol Large Amounts
Your blood pressure may return to normal after a heavy night of drinking. Now, this happens if you take alcohol sporadically. If, on the other hand, you are a heavy drinker and have been drinking alcohol over a long time, you are likely to get a chronic blood pressure. Besides developing chronic hypertension, alcohol can increase your risk of suffering a stroke in addition to getting blood vessel disease such atherosclerosis.
