'The less you drink, the better': Even minor changes in alcohol use lower hypertension risk
Drinking alcohol is a known contributor to elevated blood pressure (BP). However, it remains unclear just how closely drinking habits and hypertension risk are related to one another. Now, a new study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) has found that even minor reductions in alcohol intake can make a big impact, reducing a person's hypertension risk.[1]
“These findings suggest that alcohol cessation, even from low levels, could prevent or treat hypertension. This is especially important as treatment targets for BP have been lowered,” Harlan Krumholz, MD, JACC editor-in-chief and Harold H. Hines Jr. Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, said in a statement.
He said this study is important because it challenges the long-standing assumption that low levels of alcohol do not meaningfully affect BP.
The 2025 ACC/AHA High Blood Pressure Guideline recommends nonpharmacological management strategies for high BP, including abstinence or limiting alcohol intake to one or fewer drinks (12–14 g) daily for women and two or fewer drinks daily for men.
“Our study set out to determine whether stopping alcohol use is associate with improvement in BP levels among habitual drinkers and whether starting alcohol use affects BP among non-habitual drinkers,” explained lead author Takahiro Suzuki, MD, MPH, a researcher with St. Luke’s International Hospital and the Institute of Science Tokyo. “We focused on understudied groups, particularly women, light-to-moderate drinkers and consumers of different beverage types, to better understand how even low levels of alcohol consumption influence BP management, a critical public health issue.”
The study looked at self-reported data from annual check-up visits of Japanese patients. This included 359,717 annual visits from 58,943 adults (52.1% women; median age 50.5 years) from 2012 to 2024. Researchers tracked changes in systolic and diastolic BP during each visit and used a statistical model that accounted for demographics, medical history and lifestyle factors.
Study participants were categorized as habitual drinkers or non-drinkers at their first visit. Cohort 1 was created to understand the association between BP changes and alcohol cessation or continued habitual drinking. Cohort 2 looked at the association between BP changes and new-onset drinking or no drinking between visits.
The study found lower BP levels in participants who stopped drinking. Suzuki et al. found women who stopped drinking one to two drinks per day saw decreases of 0.78 mmHg in systolic BP and 1.14 mmHg in diastolic BP. Men at similar levels saw reductions of 1.03 mmHg and 1.62 mmHg. Both male and female participants who started to drink alcohol all experienced higher BP levels.
The quantity of alcohol being consumed was found to matter much more than what type patients drank. There were no major differences seen between beer, wine or distilled spirits on BP impacts.
“Our study shows that when it comes to BP, the less you drink, the better. The more alcohol you drink, the higher your BP goes. In the past, scientists thought that small amounts of alcohol might be okay, but our results suggest that no alcohol is actually best. This means that stopping drinking, even at low levels, could bring real heart health benefits for both women and men,” Suzuki explained.
The limitations of the study include its observational design with self-reported data, and it is not measured influences like changing drinking habits or details on sodium and potassium intake, which the authors said might have impacted the results. They added that the study population was also predominantly urban Japanese, so the results might not be generalizability to other groups.
Other recent studies show impact of alcohol on blood pressure
This study confirms the findings from two other recent studies. A 2023 meta-analysis of seven BP studies with 19,548 participants published in Hypertension.[2] The authors found consumption of any alcohol should be considered a risk factor for high systolic BP.
Another study from 2024 looked at pooled data from 23 different studies published between 1990 and 2023.[3] The researchers found drinking alcohol on a regular basis is associated with a heightened risk of hypertension, with a “positive and almost linear association” between alcohol consumption and hypertension. Eight of those studies were conducted in the United States, and the others occurred in China, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Spain and Finland. Follow-up periods ranged from two to 22 years.
Dave Fornell has covered healthcare for more than 17 years, with a focus in cardiology and radiology. Fornell is a 5-time winner of a Jesse H. Neal Award, the most prestigious editorial honors in the field of specialized journalism. The wins included best technical content, best use of social media and best COVID-19 coverage. Fornell was also a three-time Neal finalist for best range of work by a single author. He produces more than 100 editorial videos each year, most of them interviews with key opinion leaders in medicine. He also writes technical articles, covers key trends, conducts video hospital site visits, and is very involved with social media. E-mail: [email protected]