Alcohol consumption and blood pressure change: 5-year follow-up study of the association in normotensive workers

This study endeavours to clarify the effect of alcohol consumption on chang es in the blood pressure of Japanese men. The subjects, who were followed f rom 1990 to 1995, were 2189 male normotensive steelworkers aged from 40 to 54 years in 1990. Drinking habits were represented by two variables: averag e daily baseline alcohol consumption, and change in alcohol consumption dur ing the observation period, both derived from self-report questionnaires an d interviews. Nine other items were analysed as covariates: systolic and di astolic blood pressure, age, body mass index (BMI), salt intake, physical a ctivity, and levels of gamma glutamyl transpeptidase (GTP), uric acid and p lasma glucose in 1990. The association between drinking habits and blood pr essure was evaluated using ANCOVA. Subjects who had initiated antihypertens ive therapy by 1995 were excluded from this dataset. The results of analysi s disclosed that both daily alcohol consumption and its change were signifi cantly associated with changes in systolic and diastolic blood pressure dur ing the observation period. J-shaped associations of daily alcohol consumpt ion with adjusted changes in systolic and diastolic blood pressure were fou nd. Positive associations were observed between changes in alcohol consumpt ion and adjusted changes in systolic and diastolic blood pressure. In concl usion, daily alcohol consumption was associated non-linearly with changes i n blood pressure and with a threshold effect at 18 ml of ethanol per day in these middle-aged Japanese workers. In addition, increasing alcohol consum ption was associated with blood pressure elevation, and decreasing consumpt ion was associated with suppression of blood pressure elevation.