Posters and commercials are there to remind us regularly:alcohol abuse is dangerous for your health. While the devastating consequences of excessive consumption are not always visible in the short term, there is a clear signal that indicates a major health problem. A South Korean study has found that flushing your face after drinking alcohol is a sign of high blood pressure, which can lead to heart attacks, strokes and burst blood vessels. The culprit is ethanal, a chemical component present in alcohol naturally destroyed by the liver. However, people who blush because of alcohol would have a liver that would destroy the substance much more slowly, which means that the ethanal would stay in the body longer and cause more damage.
To reach these conclusions, the researchers analyzed the medical records of 1,763 patients with alcohol-related health problems. 527 of them suffered from redness linked to their consumption, 948 did not suffer from it and 288 did not drink alcohol. They found that patients who blushed triggered this reaction when they drank more than 4 glasses per week. “After taking into account data on age, BMI, physical exercise and tobacco consumption, the risk of hypertension was significantly increased when these people whose skin turned red drank more 4 glasses per week. In contrast, those who did not have this redness problem saw their risk of hypertension increase after 8 drinks per week Dr. Jong Sung Kim tells DailyMail . One of his colleagues, Dr. Kyung Hwan Cho adds that facial redness differs according to age, gender and ethnicity. This would affect women of a certain age more. And against hypertension the safest solution is to permanently stop consuming alcohol, according to the expert. We are therefore vigilant and relay the message en masse!