title: Bedtime administration of long-acting antihypertensive drugs restores normal nocturnal blood pressure fall in nondippers with essential hypertension.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nondipper hypertensive patients have more pronounced target organ injury. We examined whether shifting the time of dosing long-acting antihypertensive drugs from morning to bedtime reduces nocturnal blood pressure (BP) and restores normal nocturnal dipping in nondippers with essential hypertension.
  
  
  METHODS
  We studied 71 Japanese hypertensive patients who received long-acting antihypertensive drugs once daily in the morning using 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring. After determination of circadian BP pattern, medication time was changed to bedtime only in nondippers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among 71 patients, 36 were classified as dippers and 35 as nondippers. After shifting administration time from morning to bedtime in 34 nondippers, the office and 24-h ambulatory BP did not change, but the diurnal BP slightly increased and nocturnal BP markedly decreased. The percentages of nocturnal decline in systolic and diastolic BP increased from 2.6% to 15.5% (P < 0.0001) and 5.6% to 16.9% (P < 0.0001). Morning BP at 7 a.m.-11 a.m. did not increase by bedtime administration. The frequency of dippers increased from 0/34 (0%) to 24/34 (71%). Adding to 50% of dippers on morning administration, 86% of the hypertensive patients became dippers by deciding the medication time according to dipper status.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Nondippers on morning dosing can be changed to dippers by shifting administration time to bedtime, reducing nocturnal BP but not changing office BP, 24-h ambulatory BP or morning BP. In treating essential hypertensive patients, it is desirable to measure 24-h ambulatory BP as well as office BP and to decide the administration time of long-acting antihypertensive drugs to normalize nocturnal BP fall.
authors.affiliation: Kidney Center, Tsuchiura Kyodo General Hospital, Ibaraki, Japan. atakeda@midorino.com.|Midorino Clinic, 2526-1 Nishimura, Kutsukake, Bando, 306-0515, Japan. atakeda@midorino.com.
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.affiliation: Kidney Center, Tsuchiura Kyodo General Hospital, Ibaraki, Japan.
authors.forename: Takayuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Toda
authors.affiliation: Kidney Center, Tsuchiura Kyodo General Hospital, Ibaraki, Japan.
authors.forename: Takuma
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fujii
authors.affiliation: Kidney Center, Tsuchiura Kyodo General Hospital, Ibaraki, Japan.
authors.forename: Noriaki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Matsui
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000959:Antihypertensive Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D018660:Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D004334:Drug Administration Schedule; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000188:drug therapy*; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged
chemical_list: D000959:Antihypertensive Agents