Alcohol has a meaningful effect on high blood pressure, so it is significant people pay more attention on the relation of alcohol and blood pressure and its effect on the health.

People who drink large amounts of alcohol often show signs of having higher blood pressure than people that drink less. This becomes important, especially in incidents  where people are regular drinkers. If the alcohol consumption is kept fairly limited, that is, occasional drinking then the blood pressure level is not so incline to lean towards dangerously high readings.

For instance, a person may have an alcoholic drink, such as 12 ounces of beer or 5 ounces of wine, each are considered a single drink per day. Some males may take 1 or 2 drinks and be within safe levels. Now a female may take only 1 drink in comparison as females do not have the same level of tolerance towards alcohol as males. When the consumption of alcohol is increased over this safe level by both males and females, there is an affect on the flexibility of the blood vessels and this can increase their blood pressure measurements towards critical levels.

Due to drinking habits, alcohol and blood pressure changes are reasons for concern by physicians who deal with these types of hypertension patients, another problem they need to take into account are people drinking alcohol in large amounts may develop weight increase problems due to the elevation in calories.

If the blood pressure is elevated because of weight problems, then further medication may have to be prescribed to control the hypertension. This can be difficult to administer because of the alcohol in the person’s body can have an dangerous effect from the medication being prescribed for them.

Thinking about the strong relationship between alcohol and raised blood pressure, it’s obvious that drinking less alcohol is a must. So people with cardiac illnesses such as myocarditis, severe high blood pressure or congestive heart failure should avoid alcohol based beverages at all cost. If they can’t stay away from alcohol completely, they should keep their drinking down to a bare minimum.

From the intake of alcohol calcium and magnesium in the body can become decreased. By supplementing them may lead to their own indirect problems such as increase in blood pressure. So any patient with an alcohol dependence problem should have all their medicines thoroughly and carefully prescribed and monitored by their physician.

People with a drinking problem are prone to increased blood pressure and on top of that one of the problems of trying to correct the blood pressure with medication is the effect alcohol with the prescription has on the patient. It can increase its potency thus causing further medical problems.

A patient who has an alcohol problem and raised blood pressure should be well-advised and given support to reduce their drinking as much as possible. Limits and guidelines should be administered for drinking by the physician and these should be stuck to as much as possible by the patient.

Heart disease comes in a number of forms.  There are coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, rheumatic heart disease, congestive heart disease, congenital heart disease, and a lot more.

All of these forms are deemed capable of causing the deaths of millions of people in the whole world.   Several studies have in fact revealed that heart disease is responsible for half of all deaths in the United States alone, and it is the main cause of death in other countries.  Given this report, it is now easy for us to say that heart disease is truly a serious, life-threatening condition that needs to be taken into consideration, not to be ignored.

But the question is how to start solving the problem with heart disease?
The answer for that is pretty simple – just know what causes heart disease to occur and develop.

According to several clinical and statistical studies, what causes heart disease can easily be identified with certain categories.  Experts have actually set two main categories for identifying what causes heart disease.  The first category is consists of the major risk factors, and the other is consists of the contributing factors.  Let’s take a closer look at these categories and know exactly what causes heart disease.

Major Risk Factors

1. High Blood Pressure

Medically known as hypertension, high blood pressure is proven to increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.  The idea behind this is the fact that high blood pressure causes the heart to get stiff, leaving the heart not relaxed.  This will result to the accumulation of fluid at the back of the heart, then leaving the heart incapable of functioning properly.

2. High Cholesterol Levels

Cholesterol has long been considered as one of the major culprits of heart disease. The reason behind this claim is that once the cholesterol level exceeds in its normal level, the tendency is the fat substance will accumulate in the arteries, blocking the flow of blood and oxygen to the heart, resulting to heart disease.

3. Smoking

Many people know that smoking is bad for the health.  Well, this is certainly true as it does not only destroy the lungs, but it poses certain risks to heart disease.   Studies have shown that smoking increases heart rate, tightens the major arteries, and can even create irregularities in the heartbeats.  It also raises blood pressure, another cause of heart disease.

4. Obesity

Obesity is associated with many diseases, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes, breathing difficulties during sleep, certain types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. Obesity is most commonly caused by a combination of excessive dietary calories, lack of physical activity, and genetic susceptibility, though a limited number of cases are due solely to genetics, medical reasons or psychiatric illness.

Contributing Risk Factors

1. Stress

Many doctors have considered stress as one of the contributing risk factors of heart disease.   They base their claim on the notion that stress raises the heart rate and blood pressure, increasing the heart’s need for oxygen.  If this happens, chest pain can be felt.  Aside from this, stress is said to affect the nervous system that is capable of releasing hormones that can raise blood pressure.  These hormones can damage the arteries, slowing the blood flow to the heart.  Well, although compelling, these claims are not yet proven.

2. Alcohol

Many people also believe that what causes heart disease is occur is an excessive alcohol drinking.  As a contributing factor to heart disease, this is still not proven, but many have claimed that an excessive intake of alcohol can ruin the arteries, raises high blood pressure, and causes stroke in the end.

So what causes heart disease to occur and develop has been said.  It is important to note now that the more risk factors you have, the more chances of you developing heart disease.  But, as you notice, what causes heart disease are to some degree modifiable and treatable.  So try to do your best to avoid the problem.  You can consider a lifestyle change or take medicines to reduce the risks.