Taking hypertension medications at bedtime helps blood pressure

A study by scientists in Spain has found that taking medicine for hypertension at bedtime helps people suffering from type 2 diabetes to better manage their blood pressure, as well as lowering the risk of a major cardiovascular event, as compared to taking it in the morning.
The research, involving 448 patients with an average age of 62.5 years who have both hypertension and type 2 diabetes, and which was published in the journal Diabetes Care, showed that people who have diabetes who take one or more types of hypertension medication at bedtime exerted better blood pressure control and cardiovascular risk reduction than those who took their medication in the morning.
For the study, over an average of 5.4 years, ambulatory blood pressure was recorded for 48 hours at baseline, and annually or quarterly after adjustments in treatment. It was revealed that patients taking medications at bedtime had a significantly lower cardiovascular risk, while both groups had a statistically significant difference in the adjusted risk of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction and stroke.
The research report pointed out “Among patients with diabetes, treatment with ¡Ý1 hypertension medications at bedtime, compared with all medications upon waking, resulted in improved ambulatory blood pressure control and significantly reduced cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.”