A study has revealed that adults who take their blood pressure medicine at bedtime have a lower risk of developing diabetes than adults who take the medication in the morning, Healio reports.
The study was published in the journal Diabetologia.
The researchers also said that adults who took antihypertensive medications at bedtime also decreased their ambulatory BP.
Ramón C. Hermida, PhD, director of the bioengineering and chronobiology laboratories at the University of Vigo, Spain, told Endocrine Today,
"Ingesting hypertension medications at bedtime, instead of upon awakening in the morning, improves asleep BP control and markedly reduces the risk of diabetes,"
For the study, Hermida and his colleagues analyzed data from 2,012 Spanish adults with hypertension but without diabetes. The participants were randomly assigned to take all their blood pressure medication upon awakening or to take the medication at bedtime.
Hermida said. "The results from this randomized clinical trial indicate a significant 57% decrease in the risk of developing diabetes in the bedtime compared to the awakening treatment regimen."
"Changing the time of ingestion of hypertension medications, a zero-cost intervention, has been shown to reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and, in keeping with the new findings reported in Diabetologia, also significantly reduces the risk of developing diabetes,"
Hermida said that the ongoing Hygia project has involved 40 clinics in Northwest Spain. It has recruited around 18,000 patients who undergo periodic monitoring of their ambulatory BP to confirm the study's findings.
