Patients usually take their blood pressure medication at the start of the day, but, new research suggests that nighttime ingestion of these medications results in better blood pressure control and greatly reduces the likelihood of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events, such as a heart attack or stroke. Patients who routinely took their antihypertensive medication at bedtime had a 45% lower risk of dying from or experiencing CVD complications, according to the Hygia Chronotherapy Trial – the clinical trial involved some 19,080 Caucasian Spanish adults, who were prescribed blood pressure pills for morning or bedtime, and who all under went 48-hour blood pressure monitoring once yearly, for an average of 6 years.

In particular, the Hygia Trial analyses showed that taking blood pressure medicationat bedtime, instead of in the morning, can significantly reduce death due to heart/blood vessel conditions by 66%; stroke by 49%; heart attack by 44%; and heart failure by 42%. 

Professor Ramón C. Hermida, from the Spanish University of Vigo, explains that current guidelines do not specify medication timing, so the most common recommendation by physicians is morning ingestion.

However, he adds that, “there are no studies showing that treating hypertension in the morning improves the reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease.”

Meanwhile, Professor Paul Leeson at the University of Oxford, UK, who was not involved in the Hygia Trial, thinks that “it has the potential to transform how we prescribe blood pressure medication.”