That means it makes you urinate more, which can lead to dehydration.
And dehydration can make blood pressure harder to predict. Heart& Hypertension
It can also concentrate medication in your bloodstream.
So you can end up with this weird swing.
Too low in one moment.
Unstable in another.
All from something that seems harmless with dinner.
I came across a patient example that explains this well.
A man named Gerald was 68 years old and taking lisinopril for well-controlled blood pressure. He had been stable on the same dose for over a year.
Then he started getting dizzy in the evenings. Sometimes close to fainting.
When his care team looked at his routine, they found he had started drinking two glasses of wine with dinner most nights.
The lisinopril was relaxing his blood vessels.
The alcohol was doing the same thing.
And after meals, blood pressure naturally dips a little anyway.
So the combination was too much.
Once he cut back to an occasional drink and made sure he stayed hydrated on those nights, the episodes stopped.
His medication dose never changed. Drugs& Medications
That’s the dial again.
Nobody touched the prescription.
But something else turned the dial.
Now, this next one is where I really want you to pay attention.
Because this is the one most people would never think about.
Licorice.
And I don’t mean the red candy at the movie theater.
I mean real black licorice.
And even more importantly, licorice root in herbal teas, supplements, and certain imported candies.
The active compound is called glycyrrhizin.
And this one is not mild.
Here’s what happens.
Glycyrrhizin blocks an enzyme in your kidneys called 11-beta-HSD2.
That enzyme helps regulate the hormone system that controls sodium and potassium balance.
When it gets blocked, your body can start acting like aldosterone levels are extremely high.
That means you retain sodium.
You lose potassium.
And your blood pressure can climb.
Researchers call this pseudohyperaldosteronism.
Big word.
But the practical meaning is simple.
Your body starts doing the opposite of what your blood pressure medication is trying to do.
And that’s the part that catches people off guard.
Because it’s natural.
