Why was the fourth of July blow up your blood pressure.

Bless you

by Paige Greenfield July 4, 2013, 07:45 EDT

Do not go overboard.

The chilled beers can get your name, but here is a basic, perhaps your intake would put a stop to areas: binge drinking may double your risk of high blood pressure, suggests a new study in PLOS ONE.

Researchers collected data on drinking habits and blood pressure in more than 15,000 men and women in Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic. The result: the more people drank the risk of high blood pressure in the course of a year, and more often they guzzled, the greater. (In this study binge drinking was defined as consumption of more than five drinks in a single session at least once a month.) Researchers also found that drink do not care - increases the risk beer, wine and spirits of your choice as well.

The researchers don't know exactly how alcohol may increase blood pressure, but have some theories. Including: Alcohol may affect BP receptors in arteries; It can increase sympathetic nervous system activity; and it can cause increase in cortisol levels and blood vessels. "Other studies have found that the blood pressure in the first are consumed increases just a few hours after the drink and the effect is greater if larger quantities," says co-author of study Martin Bobak, Ph.d.., from University College London.

Bobak advice: keep it on two drinks or less today (and every day). And do you have hypertension? The alcohol completely to lose. "It makes no sense to take the drugs for high blood pressure and at the same time increasing blood pressure with alcohol," says Bobak.

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