March 15, 2002

Alcohol linked to decreased hypertension risk in young women

Moderate alcohol consumption can lead to a reduced risk of developing hypertension in young women, according to MGH and BWH researchers. The study results, published in the March 11 Archives of Internal Medicine, use data from the Nurses’ Health Study II, which is based at BWH.

"For women in their 20s to 40s, we found that alcohol intake at moderate levels was beneficial to blood pressure, and at high levels it was harmful," says Ravi Thadhani, MD, MPH, of the MGH Renal Unit and the BWH Channing Laboratory, the paper’s lead author. Thadhani and his team gathered data from more than 70,000 women from ages 25 to 42 years old at the study’s outset in 1989, who had not reported having hypertension during the study’s early years. After eight years of follow-up, the scientists found that women who drank about two or three drinks a week had a risk of developing hypertension about 15 percent lower than that of nondrinkers. Women who drank on average more than 10 or 12 drinks per week, however, had a 30 percent increased risk of developing the condition.

Thadhani stresses the importance of maintaining a healthy blood pressure because chronic hypertension is associated with heart attack, stroke and kidney disease. "Our next step is to understand how alcohol affects women of different races and ethnicity, since one group may respond differently than another. We also want to see if modifying alcohol consumption can help women who already have high blood pressure get to a healthier level," he says.

The report’s co-authors are Carlos A. Camargo, Jr, MD, DrPH, and Gary C. Curhan, MD, ScD, of MGH; and Meir J. Stampfer, MD, DrPH; Walter C. Willett, MD, DrPH; and Eric B. Rimm, ScD, the study’s senior author, of Harvard School of Public Health and BWH.