Residual pressor effects of chronic alcohol in detoxified alcoholics

Although research in population studies has indicated that recent alcohol intake is positively correlated with blood pressure, there is a need to study the relationship of blood pressure to measures of lifetime alcohol intake in alcoholics. To this end, we assessed systolic and diastolic pressures and lifetime alcohol intake through structured interviews with 253 normotensive recovering alcoholics. Blood pressures were first corrected with multiple linear regression for the influence of confounding or modifying variables and then were regressed against alcohol consumption measures. Systolic pressure was significantly correlated (positively) with only a few measures of recent alcohol intake, and the correlations were not high (r2 = .05 to .11, P < .05). Diastolic pressure was found to be highly and positively correlated with the duration of the drinking career, but more so in blacks than in whites. The total lifetime dose of alcohol was found to be positively correlated with diastolic but not systolic pressure, but only in black male alcoholics. The steeper slope of the regression of blood pressure versus lifetime total alcohol or duration of the drinking career in black alcoholics suggests greater cardiovascular susceptibility to alcohol toxicity as lifetime doses increase and as the drinking career lengthens.