Chronotherapeutics of conventional blood pressure-lowering medications: simple, low-cost means of improving management and treatment outcomes of hypertensive-related disorders

Curr Hypertens Rep. 2014 Feb;16(2):412. doi: 10.1007/s11906-013-0412-x.

Abstract

Correlation between blood pressure (BP) target organ damage, cardiovascular risk, and long-term prognosis is greater for ambulatory monitored (ABPM) than daytime in-clinic measurements. Additionally, consistent evidence of numerous studies substantiates the ABPM-determined asleep BP mean is an independent and stronger predictor of risk and incidence of end-organ injury and cardiovascular events than the awake or 24-h means. Hence, cost-effective control of sleep-time BP is of great clinical relevance. Ingestion time, according to circadian rhythms, of hypertension medications of six different classes and their combinations significantly impacts beneficial and/or adverse effects. For example, because the high-amplitude circadian rhythm of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system activates during nighttime sleep, bedtime versus morning ingestion of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers better controls the asleep than awake BP means, with additional benefit independent of terminal half-life of converting the 24-h BP profile into more normal dipper patterning. Recent findings authenticate therapeutic reduction of sleep-time BP, best achieved when the full daily dose of ≥1 hypertension medications is routinely ingested at bedtime, is the most significant independent predictor of lowered cardiovascular and cerebrovascular risk.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Antihypertensive Agents / administration & dosage*
  • Antihypertensive Agents / economics
  • Antihypertensive Agents / therapeutic use*
  • Blood Pressure / drug effects*
  • Blood Pressure / physiology
  • Drug Chronotherapy
  • Humans
  • Hypertension / drug therapy*
  • Sleep / drug effects*
  • Treatment Outcome

Substances

  • Antihypertensive Agents