more than 650,000 cases involve exceeding recommended drinking limits

More than 650,000 adults on mainland France, mostly men, suffer from high blood pressure due to alcohol consumption exceeding an average of 10 drinks per week, according to a study published Tuesday, April 30, by French Public Health. In France, approximately one in three adults suffers from hypertension, or about 17 million people. Several risk factors have been identified, such as age, family history, low physical activity, a diet high in salt and low in fruits and vegetables, obesity, and alcohol consumption.

To better measure the weight of alcohol, the French Public Health Service attempted to estimate the number of cases of hypertension associated with drinking alcohol above recommended limits among people aged 18–74 years. To limit the health effects of alcohol, low-risk consumption benchmarks (maximum 10 drinks per week, maximum two drinks per day and alcohol-free days of the week) have been defined since 2017 and are regularly reported.

There are approximately 655,000 cases of high blood pressure before the age of 75. “will be associated with alcohol consumption exceeding an average of 10 drinks per week on mainland France”, including 624,000 men and 31,000 women, according to estimates from a study published in the Epidemiology Weekly Bulletin. Due to the lack of recent data on the incidence of hypertension abroad, the study is limited to mainland France. There “significant difference” According to the researchers, the difference between men and women is mainly due to higher alcohol consumption among men compared to women, as well as episodes of binge drinking and drinking, which are more common among some than others.

The importance of prevention

Although they acknowledge certain methodological limitations of their study, the authors view it as “a minimum estimate of the incidence of high blood pressure associated with alcohol consumption, which appears to be very high and is based on two reliable and representative surveys of the French population, the Esteban Health Survey and the French Public Health Barometer”. Faced with these results, the health agency emphasizes the importance of preventing alcohol use as well as treating hypertension.

Alcohol remains one of the leading risk factors for illness and death in France, accounting for more than 40,000 deaths. In addition to cardiovascular risks and cirrhosis of the liver, drinking alcoholic beverages increases the risk of developing certain types of cancer. “If the French have reduced their alcohol consumption over the last thirty years, consumption levels remain very high (…) both among the general population and among certain subgroups of the population such as pregnant women”recalls French Director General of Public Health Caroline Semail in an editorial overseeing this epidemiological bulletin.