Citation

Rakic V, Puddey IB, Burke V, Dimmitt SB, Beilin LJ. J. Hypertens. 1998; 16(2): 165-174.

Affiliation

University Department of Medicine, Royal Perth Hospital, and the West Australian Heart Institute. vrakic@cyllene.uwa.edu.au

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9535143

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of patterns of drinking (weekend versus daily drinking) on the pressor responses to alcohol in 55 male drinkers using clinic and 24 h ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. DESIGN: A randomized, controlled cross-over trial. METHODS: Recruitment required a regular alcohol intake of 210-500 ml absolute alcohol/week, with > 60% consumed as beer. Fourteen subjects were categorized as predominantly weekend drinkers, whereas the remaining 41 subjects regularly drank on a daily basis. After 4 weeks of familiarization, all subjects were randomly allocated to drinking low-alcohol beer (0.9% vol:vol) only or to maintain their usual drinking habits with provision of full-strength beer (5% vol:vol) for 4 weeks. They then switched back to their usual drinking habits or low-alcohol beer, respectively, for a further 4 weeks while maintaining their usual drinking pattern. RESULTS: Baseline ambulatory systolic blood pressure in weekend but not in daily drinkers was 2.4 mmHg higher on Monday than it was on Thursday (P = 0.02). This Monday-Thursday difference was lost during intervention. When subjects switched from the high-alcohol to the low-alcohol period the falls in ambulatory systolic blood pressure in weekend (3.1 mmHg, P < 0.001) and daily drinkers (2.2 mmHg, P < 0.001) were similar. Most of the fall was evident during week 1 of the low-alcohol period for weekend drinkers but not until week 4 for daily drinkers. CONCLUSION: The pressor response to alcohol consumption is similar in magnitude in weekend and daily drinkers, present throughout a 24 h period and has a rapid onset/offset in weekend drinkers but is more sustained in daily drinkers.

Language: en