Are alcohol and coffee good for people with high blood pressure? Hardly.

Can alcohol and coffee help people with high blood pressure?

Although some small studies have shown that a glass of wine or a cup of coffee a day can help prevent and manage cardiovascular disease, alcohol and coffee are generally not beneficial for people with high blood pressure.

"Many hypertensive patients ask me whether it's okay to have one or two drinks, or if alcohol is harmful to the heart," said Professor Seo Ji-won of the Department of Cardiology at Gangnam Severance Hospital on the hospital’s YouTube channel.

However, alcohol is by no means a beneficial food for hypertensive patients, Seo added.

In particular, elevated blood pressure is closely related to the amount of alcohol consumed per day. “The main ingredient of wines and liquors that are bad for your body is alcohol,” Professor Seo noted. “The more alcohol you drink, the more it raises your blood pressure, damaging your peripheral organs or causing dementia.”

Many studies have confirmed that there is a proportional relationship between blood pressure and alcohol consumption. “Alcohol is supposed to be bad, especially for hypertension,” Seo said. “There are many studies which show that as the amount of alcohol in alcohol increases, blood pressure increases.”

Drinking alcohol while taking medication for high blood pressure also poses a threat to liver health. “The liver metabolizes medications and alcohol, and when it is in good condition, it can work well. However, if one or the other is abnormal, it can cause liver function to be impaired,” Professor Seo said.

There's another reason why it's dangerous to drink alcohol while taking hypertension medication.

“Hypertension medications, as well as other specialty medications, can interact with alcohol. This can change the concentration of the medication in the body,” Professor Seo said. “You may not quit drinking for life, but you should cut down on it and avoid it as much as possible.”

Not alcohol but also coffee does not help blood pressure management in hypertensive patients.

“Caffeine has a diuretic effect (which lowers blood pressure), but it also stimulates the sympathetic nervous system in the body,” Seo said. “Quite a few people feel their heart pounding after drinking coffee, a sign of increased blood pressure.”

For this reason, healthcare professionals recommend that people with hypertension limit their caffeine intake. So, how much coffee do they recommend for people with hypertension? One or two cups of coffee a day is the maximum.

“Caffeine has some good effects,” Professor said. “However, on the other hand, it can increase blood pressure. Patients with high blood pressure and heart failure should limit their caffeine intake slightly (than one or two cups).”