It’s Time to Change the Time of Consumption of Your BP Medication

Elevated Blood Pressure is Common in BP Patients Even During Blood Time

Popping a pill into the mouth has also become a part of our daily routine, a kind of a dietary routine indeed. Such is the state of the world when it comes to quality of health! Blood pressure is a condition that’s universally present and almost 1 in 5 adults in India suffer from this chronic problem. Physicians prescribe prescription medications for keeping blood pressure levels under control along with strategic changes in eating routines and activity schedules. Get in touch with a reputed dietitian nutritionist at www.firsteatright.com to bring in optimal changes to your lifestyle and eating habits that are advantageous for blood pressure levels. Once the patient starts using it there arises the need to use them for life (in most cases) and missing out on them even once a while can cause tremendous changes in the patient’s body that’s not healthy.

Taking your meds is important but much more important is the time of day during which you choose to take them and that’s because it could have a tremendous influence on your risk of complications such as stroke and heart problems, both of which are directly related to blood pressure numbers. While this has been proved by a large-scale study recently, we did have another one a couple of years back that tested the timing of blood pressure meds on 661 men and women with mild kidney disease who were taking one or more blood pressure medications. The study which happened for almost 6 years showed that those who took the meds during night had better blood pressure control and were only one-third times at a risk of heart failure and stroke compared to those who took the pills in the morning.
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The Hygia Chronotherapy Trial
This trial is the largest to date to investigate the effects of the time of day when people take their anti-hypertensive medications and its associated risk of cardiovascular problems. More than 19,000 patients were randomly selected to take blood pressure meds either at bedtime or in the morning following them up for more than six years and monitoring their ambulatory BP levels over 48 hours at least once a year. Results showed that those who took their BP meds at bedtime were almost at a 50% reduced risk of suffering from heart-related problems-risk of death from heart or blood vessel problems was reduced by 66%, risk of myocardial infarction was reduced by 44%, coronary revascularisation by 40%, heart failure by 42% and stroke by 49%. This study is a clear proof that those who take their BP meds at bedtime in comparison to daytime have controlled blood pressure and also their risk of stroke and heart attack is minimized.

It’s a well-known fact that physicians generally recommend taking blood pressure meds during the daytime quoting different reasons such as ease to remember or simply because many BP meds are diuretics and we don’t want to wake up a couple of times to visit the bathroom for urination. Also, there is the fear of increased blood pressure levels in the morning in the absence of these pills. But we also don’t have any studies showing that suggesting antihypertension pills in the morning helps in reducing the risk of cardiovascular problems.
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With such clear results it isn’t surprising that many are reconsidering their decision on the timing of the pill but it isn’t a smart move to make changes without consulting your healthcare provider first as he/she has suggested taking the pill at a specific time on the prescription. It should be no wonder if even doctors start thinking upon this study and making changes to their prescriptions for blood pressure medication timings as hypertension is a serious risk factor for heart disease and taking a pill at bedtime is not going to affect the individual in any negative way.