Bedtime may be best for when to take blood pressure medication

Taking medicines according to the body’s wake/sleep cycle — or circadian rhythm — can help maximize the efficiency of drugs, and a new study of nearly 20,000 people finds that taking blood pressure medicine at bedtime could be the most effective. Roughly half the participants took their medication right before going to bed, while the others were asked to take their medicines as soon as they woke up in the morning. During the six-year follow-up, those who took their medicine at night had a 45% lower risk of dying from any cardiovascular incident. More specifically, they were also about 34% less likely to die of a heart attack, and about half as likely to die of stroke. The trial participants were all Caucasian, so the findings would need to be replicated in those from other ethnic groups to be generalizable.