Researchers are saying you should take your blood pressure medicine at bedtime, for the best results.
It’s a simple tip that could save lives, they say in the European Heart Journal.
The study suggests the pills offer more protection against heart attacks and strokes when taken at bedtime rather than in the morning, and experts believe our body’s biological ‘clock’ or natural 24 hour rhythm changes our response to the medication.
This latest trial is the largest so far to look at how high blood pressure pills affect a person, and included more than 19,000 people on these medications.
In the Spanish study:
- The patients were put into two groups at random – one group took the pills in the morning and the other group took them at bedtime
- Researchers monitored what happened to the patients over the next five or more years
- Patients who took their medication in the evening had nearly half the risk of dying from, or having, a heart attack, stroke or heart failure
Blood pressure should naturally dip at night, as we get tried and go to sleep.
If it doesn’t, and remains consistently high, that puts you at increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, experts say.
“Patients in the study who took their medication at bedtime had significantly lower average blood pressure both at night and during the day, and their blood pressure dipped more at night, when compared with patients taking their medication each morning.”
Lead researcher Prof Ramon Hermida, said doctors might want to consider recommending it to patients: “It’s totally cost free. It might save a lot of lives.
“Current guidelines on the treatment of hypertension do not recommend any preferred treatment time. Morning ingestion has been the most common recommendation by physicians based on the misleading goal of reducing morning blood pressure levels. The results of this study show that patients who routinely take their anti-hypertensive medication at bedtime, as opposed to when they wake up, have better controlled blood pressure and, most importantly, a significantly decreased risk of death or illness from heart and blood vessel problems.”
