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Subscribe to RSSA small switch in your daily schedule could significantly cut your risk of heart attack and stroke, a new study finds.
Taking blood pressure medications at bedtime instead of in the morning reduces the risk of a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems by about two-thirds, Spanish researchers reported.
The new study adds to a growing body of research that suggests blood pressure medication is more effective when taken before going to sleep instead of upon awakening. But the researchers caution that no one should switch from morning to bedtime dosing without first consulting a doctor and having his or her blood pressure monitored over a 24-hour period.
It’s now well-accepted that heart attacks are more common in the morning than the evening, says Michael Smolensky of the biomedical engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin. Smolensky wasn’t a coauthor on the new report but has collaborated with the authors.
Less widely accepted is the notion that blood pressure varies over the course of the day, so one or two readings in the doctor’s office doesn’t tell the whole story, says Smolensky, co-editor of the journal Chronobiology International.
“Mother Nature had in mind that when we went to sleep at night our heart rate and blood pressure would decline” to give our cardiovascular system a rest, Smolensky says. But, he says, people with high blood pressure are less likely to experience that nightly dip, which puts them at a greater risk of complications.
In an email to msnbc.com, lead author Ramon Hermida described bedtime hypertension treatment as “the most effective, cost-free approach to obtain the goal of greater sleep blood pressure reduction.” Still, says Hermida, director of the bioengineering and chronobiology labs at the University of Vigo in Spain, “all patients should be evaluated individually…with ambulatory blood pressure monitoring.”
Monitoring patients’ blood pressure over a day or two is important, because taking medication at night might lower it too much, Smolensky says. That could lead to falls if they got up to go to the bathroom at night or even increase their risk of a stroke because they weren’t getting enough blood to the brain, he says.
Hermida’s new study randomly assigned 661 patients to take all of their prescribed high blood pressure medications upon awakening or to take at least one of them at bedtime. At the beginning of the study, all of them wore ambulatory blood pressure monitors for 48 hours. They were tracked for about 5 ½ years on average and had their blood pressure monitored for 48 hours straight at least once a year.
All of the patients had chronic kidney disease. They represented a subset of patients in a larger study of the timing of blood pressure treatment. That study overall found a similar reduction in risk as it did in the kidney disease patients alone.
“Ours is just the very first trial ever testing the influence on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality of awakening vs. bedtime hypertension treatment,” says Hermida, who published his latest findings in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. “Further studies will be needed to corroborate our findings.”
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This is right opposite to what my doctors have advised me for years. They all said blood pressure meds worked best if taken in the mornings. It seems like nearly everything that is right yesterday is wrong today in the health field as they flip flop more than politicans
Just wait - it will change again. The best advice is to do what works best for you.
I suspect that the "old take your BP pill in the morning" instruction came about because it just seemed like a logical thing to do, just like a lot of our older medical advice. With so much good medical research being done around the world, new and better recommendations are coming out. Deb, you may be right that it will change again, but only if the research supports the change. Personally, I'm going to call my doctor and ask him about it.
This study's results need to be peer-reviewed and replicated by other researchers first. Too often the media reports on one study. Everyone gets all excited and reports it like it is a absolute fact. A year or two later other studies cannot replicate the findings. I take my meds in the morning because if I have to take them at night I will forget. I also don't relish the thought of getting up at night to use the bathroom, getting dizzy, falling and knocking my brains out.
Blood pressure meds work better to "lower blood pressure" when taken in the AM, solely due to the fact that life events that cause spikes in BP occur during your working hours. However, when taken at night, the preventative nature helps combat the infamous "4am MI", so this is not a contradiction; merely a distinction. If you have genetic risk (or if you have heart disease), it may make sense to half the dose in the AM and half in the PM, or take it all at night.
One last thing: Science is 'designed' to be self-correcting. The body is a very complex organism, and very little is 100% conclusive. That said, this process has taken us from the dark ages, extended our lifespans by 37 years, eased our pain, and effectively addressed (and continues to address) the myriad of mental disorders our fragile DNA (and our environment, of course) tends to perpetuate.
Politicians, on the other hand, flip-flop, in the vast majority of cases, for NO other reason than political gain.
Huge difference. : )
Actually, the slow pharmacokinetics of common BP meds means taking them in the morning makes them most effective in the afternoon. Take them before bed and they're near their peak effectiveness when you rise. They're most effective about 7 hours after you take them. It's a minor effect because they are also so slowly cleared from the bloodstream that they remain somewhat effective pretty much continuously, but it is not an absolutely flat time/effectiveness curve.
I finally read the instructions on my cholestral meds (take at night) now BP too? I can do that.
I don't think you want to take HCTZ (a diuretic) before bed. You'll be up all night going to the bathroom.
I was thinking the same thing! I'm on that as well and there's no way I can take it at night! I'd be up every hour literally!
Talk to your doctor if you're worried. Otherwise, if the medicine is working just go with it.
Why are people not investigating the truths about vaccines of any kind before they agree to allow themselves or their innocent children to be vaccinated? Does it not worry you one bit that you are actually injected with the virus in the first place? Why is the media supporting the lies of these pharmaceutical industry and the lies of the government, is it because they are the same outlets that advertise their destructive drugs? Is it not obvious that if we are one of the most sickly nation (high rate of cancers, overweight, high rate of diabetes etc.) that we need to be doing things differently and not continue to be fooled by people who profit from us being sick? NO VACCINE HAS BEEN PROVEN TO WORK!!!!! ABSOLUTELY NONE!!!!! DO SOME RESEARCH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, WE ARE LIVING IN A NEW AGE OF TECHNOLOGY... WAKE UP!!!!!
Here is some very helpful info with backed up documentation...
Vaccines don't work. Really? Before vaccines, people died in droves of small pox, diphtheria, and other illnesses that have practically disappeared from the face of the earth because of vaccines. I had one of the first-ever polio vaccines (live virus) and didn't ever get polio. There were lots of kids in my school who had polio before the vaccine came out, and they suffered horribly. How many kids are there these days with polio? Secondly, today's vaccines are not made with live viruses. They are killed viruses. You cannot get the illness from a killed virus. The killed virus simply stimulates antibodies to recognize the virus and then kill any invaders. Please take a basic biology class and don't put me or my kids in jeopardy from devastating illnesses because of your ignorance.
Hey GM take a trip to India and do not get any vaccination before you go. Let us know how that works our for you. Thanks Deb I remember the polio vaccines and the people in iron lungs that we never hear about today due to vaccines.
First, why have you opted to post this information, which has no relavence to the article, in the comments for this article.
Second, as many people have already pointed out, can you please explain why diseases for which vaccines have been produced (polio or rubella to name 2) are practically non-existent.
Like far too many people on the internet these days, you believe anything you read and your lack of concetration (or comprehension) in high school biology class has obviously caught up with you. People like you are dangerous. You fail to immunize your children and you create the opportunity these long gone diseases to re-immerge into a society that has, because of it's intelligence, irradicated them previously.
Sorry I left you out Hanover Phist, you can check out my response below. I can visit without living in fear like some of you uninformed people who choose to stay mainstream. Ozone therapy works fine for me, don't need vaccines, never have and never will and there are millions who live much healthier lives without it unlike those who advocate for the drugs.
GM - Your comment is exactly why people should sit back and not make significant life changes based on one study. Vaccines do work. The research done by Andrew Wakefield that lead many to believe that vaccines were causing autism has been thoroughly discredited and has since been withdrawn. The sample was small, it was manipulated, and then falsified. No researcher has ever been able to replicate the first study. Unfortunately many people still believe the media hype about vaccine. You could not have been around before polio vaccines and saw the devastation that it caused and make such a statement. Lucky for you that you don't have to worry about getting a potentially life saving disease from those who have been vaccinated. The rest of us have to be concerned about you infecting us and our children.
Come on people lets just say it. This guy is a idiot.
KayT - 1718089, you really believe in a world as vast as ours only one person has brought proof forward that vaccines does not work? Do you know that Andrew Wakefield will soon have his day in court against the British government and their representative who lied at the time to damage his career and he is not alone (do some research). Before his investigation that same vaccine was banned by Canada after it was proven to be toxic, also Germany rejected it. The government knew they would have a large sum of money to pay if they didn't make Wakefield out to be a bad guy, you can praise your media for that (wait didn't Murdock just settle for being a fraud?). Do you also know that before the Hepatitis-1 vaccine was invented Hep-1 could have been cured without causing death and no deaths had ever been recorded to be caused by Hep-1, but as soon as people started taking the vaccines deaths were recorded? The only thing that will save you from an outbreak of any sort is a healthy lifestyle and being informed. You are misinformed but I am sure you have no interest in being anything other than that. Why don't you try this, next time you go take a vaccine shot or are asked to; tell the person who is recommending or administering it to sign a document that says the vaccine you are about to take will guarantee your protection from the virus and will have absolutely no negative effect on you or your child. I can guarantee you, you won't get one signature, not even from the President of our country.
Notevenfunny, read a book!
Hey, if you are not going to take vaccines, please stay away from newborns and their mothers. Remember, infected carriers can show no symptoms and without a vaccine there really is no way to know if you are infected or not. Thanks.
GM -- I guess you're too young to remember polio, small pox and the Spanish flu epidemic of the 1910's. And how many kids do you know who have had the measles, chicken pox, etc.? Syphillis, of course, is a lifestyle disease, but even the effects of that have been overwhelmingly ameliorated by a vaccine (penicillin). There probably is an occasional vaccine that doesn't work or work well. But, as they say, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. (Personally, I think you're a Luddite.)
Really and you were? And this has to do with hepatitis B how?
Another "you just don't know how bad disease is" gambit.
And the luddite logical fallacy
2 bad arguments in one paragraph.
Go to Gary Null dot com to get the info I was trying to post... detailed investigation with proof for your use.
Gary Null is a nut job.
GM, it is a shame that you are using this medium to post false information. You have obviously were not alive in this country before children were immunized here. As Deb above states I too know several people that suffered (and are still suffering) the effects of polio today. And you have obviously never been to other countries were none of the children suffer from these needless diseases. Don't get me wrong, I am very cautious of any new vaccine. I personally do not get a yearly flu shot. However, I did not subject my children to the possibility of an unnecessary disease because I listen to uneducated people.
Actually, taking BP medications upon awakening is grounded in medical fact, IE: BP is generally highest upon awakening. Some medications are taken BID as well, not just QD.
GM, if immunizations do not work, can you please explain why we do not see out breaks of diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, smallpox, mumps and German measles (rubella)? More recently, children no longer have to suffer with chicken pox either. Please explain this, as it appears to me that these immunizations have worked miracles.
Can you also explain how you make the jump to immunizations from an article about timing of blood pressure medication? Seems you are on a mission to post a lot of bull.
Um?? Has anyone read the "The China Study" and did follow up research? Cut meat/dairy and you won't need heart surgery. Look at Bill Clinton. The dude is now a vegetarian. You think one of the most powerful men on the planet doesn't have the best of the best giving him healthcare advice? Actions speak louder then words.
I think being up all night going to the bathroom would not be good for my blood pressure!!!
I'm with you on that one! LOL
J, LZ, Deb P. One day you all will wake up to truth and if you are indeed decent people my hope is you live to experience that truth, otherwise die in your stupidity and take those who are just as dumb with you! Time and time again drug companies pay settlements to people who have gotten affected by the use drugs (vaccines included and that is documented), those same companies either change their names or the names of the drugs that they know do harm and pay off the FDA to allow those drugs on the market. Let me guess all your faith is in the FDA right? How many times do you have to be fooled before you realize that you're the one who's stupid enough to trust the same people fooling you? Do you know what the most common cause of death in this country? You don't have to listen to Gary the "nut job", just trust the FDA or the paid doctors, or the pharmaceutical industry and be sure to update us when you find out you're being screwed. All the best!
GM-4370863, you say lots of thing very impassioned things but you never answer the questions asked of you. J100 asks "GM, if immunizations do not work, can you please explain why we do not see out breaks of diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, smallpox, mumps and German measles (rubella)? More recently, children no longer have to suffer with chicken pox either. Please explain this, as it appears to me that these immunizations have worked miracles." and while you give an impassioned speech in the boxes that follow, you never offer an answer that gives us the basis upon which your decisions/statements are made. Please do so if you expect anyone in this forum to take you seriously.
Did Jesus kill people in the name of his miracles because vaccines kill and maim people. Did Jesus say the benefits outweight the risks?
Whooping cough HAS been around. Incidence has been rising in spite of high vaccine uptake. The confidence in the vaccine (or in some cases it's called "faith in the vaccine") has been overstated. It has been show to not work as well as previously thought.
All infectious disease mortality was falling drastically before vaccines were being used. Why do vaccines get the credit?
You always bring up mortality rates--like a typical anti-vaxer. Mortality depends on getting the virus and then how well medical care can keep complicating issues from killing you. Medical care has steadily increased over time and before many vaccines came into existence, so mortality rates started dropping. But people still got the virus--incidence rates of the disease hadn't dropped. But when you look at measles, polio, Hib, etc, incidence rates dropped precipitously when vaccination started. We have vaccines to thank for that.
Robert you also are obsessed with this sentiment: "Did Jesus say the benefits outweight the risks?"
You attack people who support vaccination because you are disgusted by the idea that some people may be at risk from vaccines while others reap the benefits of the shots.
Can you name me some technology out there that is risk free? Name something which doesn't benefit the majority of people while also harming small pockets of society.
I think you'll find that many of the technologies that you enjoy, lead to harm in some cases.
Your laptop or computer you use to type on here, for example, requires energy. If you're in the U.S., that energy probably came in part from coal power plants. The pollution from coal plants kill thousands of people every year. Also when you are finished with that computer, it must be disposed of properly because the metals and other chemicals used to make its circuitry can leach into the environment and even into ground water supplies. But we all benefit from computers enormously.
How about clean water? "whatever," you say, "how can there be any downside to clean water?" In California, municipalities are pumping ground and surface water supplies to degrees that aren't sustainable. Coastal parts of the state pump so much ground water that sea water infiltrates their aquifers, ruining the water supply. So many communities recycle wastewater and pump it back into the ground to keep the sea water at bay. But purifying wastewater to a level that it's OK to pump back into aquifers costs energy and produces sometimes toxic byproducts. But no one is going to debate the usefulness of clean water to drink and irrigate crops with.
So I think when you decry how vaccination asks some to assume risks for the benefit of the rest of society, you are quite naive about how the real world works. Every day you wake up in the morning you have to accept risks, some you chose willingly, some you have no choice over. Good policy ensures that the benefits far outweigh any risks created. With vaccination, the scales tilt far in favor of benefits.
You always stick to incidence rates - like typical pro-forced mass vaccine. You must sympathize with the blogger based medicine cult and their internet groups, the so called skeptics.
You see I am not scared of incidence of child hood disease. I don't think anyone really is scared of incidence. It's mortality and permament damage that scares people. That's how you sell a mass vaccine campaign. So you can trump up your numbers all you want but you must remember that you have to keep it emotional to get herd compliance.
Fear and Anger. Fear of dreaded disease not simple self limiting infection. And anger for others not complying. Make them think that by not vaccinating they are harming others and portray them as selfish members of society to be banished in the name of Lord Merck.
So stick with incidence all you want. It's not scary unless you can confuse people with your numbers. Better yet, why don't you use world wide number to really scare people.
The pollution from coal plants kill thousands of people every year.
Let me play devil's advocate and reverse the roles here.
Are you sure coal plants kill thousands. How can you prove it was the coal plant that killed a person. In my city they say that 100 extra heart attacks happen every year because of particles released by our power plant 70 miles away.
Tell me how can you prove that to the satisfaction of the power plant scientists, executives, and lawyers.
Does that mean it doesn't really happen?
I don't care if one "supports vaccination". I have a problem when others are morally judgemental for others choosing not to vaccinate when they have sufficient science and values not to do so.
"You see I am not scared of incidence of child hood disease."
You don't care about stopping millions of cases of a disease every year. I think you'll find most people when given the choice of not getting the measles or polio or whooping cough or getting the disease, they'll pick not getting it. Especially if the solution is relatively risk free, like vaccines.
Your second post doesn't address my main point: Everything has risks and benefits. So when you complain that vaccines have risks, you're being simple-minded.
"I don't care if one "supports vaccination". I have a problem when others are morally judgemental for others choosing not to vaccinate when they have sufficient science and values not to do so."
So basically you're fine with vaccination as long as people aren't mean to anti-vaxers? Is it OK to be mean to intelligent design adherents? Like anti-vaxers, they don't accept well-establkished science.
If nothing that happens except lifelong immunity? no. You can chose to get life long "booster" shots if you're that scared of childhood illness by itself. Again we're talking about mortality(death) vs. Incidence (getting mildly sick and conferring lifelong immunity).
Except it's not risk free. convulsive seizures or paralysis seem risk free? I find you word "relative" to be a misleading term. Absolutely people experience these side effects. Many of the polio cases that occurred in the U.S. were in fact CAUSED by the vaccine itself.
Do you not believe in a god? I think people should take note of your types so they are not easily fooled by you and your ilk.
Robert: "Again we're talking about mortality(death) vs. Incidence (getting mildly sick and conferring lifelong immunity)."
Again go out on the street and ask people: Say you were assured that you wouldn't die from any virus you bumped into. Now would you rather get measles or polio or whooping cough or would you rather not? I think people would still opt out of getting those diseases.
"Except it's not risk free. convulsive seizures or paralysis seem risk free? I find you word "relative" to be a misleading term. Absolutely people experience these side effects."
Did I say no one experienced those side effects? I readily admit these side effects happen. But the data shows that they're extremely rare. So therefore the risk is relatively low. Look, Robert, you take risks all the time--when you get in your car, when you get in an airplane, when you cross the street. Life is risk. Study after study has shown that vaccines are low risk.
"Do you not believe in a god? I think people should take note of your types so they are not easily fooled by you and your ilk."
And now we get to see where you come from Robert. No I don't believe in god. If you do, great. But that doesn't matter for this discussion. You clearly don't understand medicine and the scientific method. And now amount of godliness can repair that.
Hey, if God didn't want us to take vaccines, he never would have had them developed. LMAO
I can PROMISE you G-d didn't develop vaccines. Whatever can vouch for that.
You missed the "o" in "God," Robert. Must have been a typo.
I was going to comment about staying up all night peeing after taking diuretic blood pressure med's at night and then GM-4370863 started posting and I lost my train of thought.
What a small minded idiot he or she is.
HP-358741 A small minded idiot will jump at taking a chemical prescribed by a doctor who gets a cut by you paying for the drug instead of being a responsible for the temple where your peanut sized brain dwells, and look into a natural alternatives that work! Most if not all chemicals are created to mimic something that already exist in a natural form and it was only created to be manufacture at a rapid pace, often times with a dangerous side effect. The stronger your diet the longer it will take to hurt you, period!!! People in this "modernized society" are so lazy that in the name of a "quick fix" you will destroy anything including your own bodies, when your fellow citizens have sacrificed it all selflessly to bring you truth and prove to you time and time again that industries you put your trust in is what's killing you. The drug companies do not care about you, they care about your money or that of the insurance companies you pay to have!!! Reprogram your thinking and doing... I hope you do for your own good and that of those who care about you!
If taking blood pressure medication at night includes taking an HCTZ which is a diuretic I don't think you gonna get a lot of sleep. Either that or you will once again become a "Bed Wetter".
honestly, it really doesn't matter. Just take your meds daily..you'll be fine
I take HCTZ at night (and atenolol and lisinopril) and have no problem with being up all night - most nights I don't have to get up at all. I think if you don't eat anything after dinner, and limit fluids in the evening to about a half-cup with meds, that really cuts down on the urine production. I'm in that chronic kidney disease group. :-)
GM I tried all types of natural methods to get my BP down lost weight decreased salt changed diet natural herb but it was still high and getting higher. I now take a pill that cost $2.92 per month. I don't think my doctor will get rich off a kick back from that medicine. Yes many drugs are high priced but many more can be found in generic form just as effective and affordable.
more Bull@!$%#. When does it ever end ?
Thanks a heap for this advice :-(
My BP pill contains a diuretic, and when I followed your advice I had to go to the bathroom so many times in the middle of the night I feared I had suddenly developed a bad prostate. My internist would have added a drug for that "new problem" had my wife (who is a nursing student) not realized what was going on.