The effect of a reduction in alcohol consumption on blood pressure: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Although it is well established that heavy alcohol consumption increases the risk of hypertension, little is known about the effect of a reduction of alcohol intake on blood pressure. We aimed to assess the effect of a reduction in alcohol consumption on change in blood pressure stratified by initial amount of alcohol consumption and sex in adults. METHODS: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MedLine, Embase, CENTRAL, and ClinicalTrials.gov from database inception up to July 13, 2016, for trials investigating the effect of a change of alcohol consumption on blood pressure in adults using keywords and MeSH terms related to alcohol consumption, blood pressure, and clinical trials, with no language restrictions. We also searched reference lists of identified articles and published meta-analyses and reviews. We included full-text articles with original human trial data for the effect of a change of alcohol consumption on blood pressure in adults, which reported a quantifiable change in average alcohol consumption that lasted at least 7 days and a corresponding change in blood pressure. We extracted data from published reports. We did random-effects meta-analyses stratified by amount of alcohol intake at baseline. All meta-analyses were done with Stata (version 14.1). For the UK, we modelled the effect of a reduction of alcohol consumption for 50% of the population drinking more than two standard drinks per day (ie, 12 g pure alcohol per drink). FINDINGS: 36 trials with 2865 participants (2464 men and 401 women) were included. In people who drank two or fewer drinks per day, a reduction in alcohol was not associated with a significant reduction in blood pressure; however, in people who drank more than two drinks per day, a reduction in alcohol intake was associated with increased blood pressure reduction. Reduction in systolic blood pressure (mean difference -5·50 mm Hg, 95% CI -6·70 to -4·30) and diastolic blood pressure (-3·97, -4·70 to -3·25) was strongest in participants who drank six or more drinks per day if they reduced their intake by about 50%. For the UK, the results would translate into more than 7000 inpatient hospitalisations and 678 cardiovascular deaths prevented every year. INTERPRETATION: Reducing alcohol intake lowers blood pressure in a dose-dependent manner with an apparent threshold effect. Implementation of effective alcohol interventions in people who drink more than two drinks per day would reduce the disease burden from both alcohol consumption and hypertension, and should be prioritised in countries with substantial alcohol-attributable risk. FUNDING: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.019 | 0.044 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.023 | 0.049 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".