While1.7 million French people start a antihypertensive treatment every year, the question arises: what is the ideal time to take your tablets? During the Congress of the European Society of Cardiology, which took place at the beginning of September, two new clinical trialsnamed BedMed and BedMed-Frail, have confirmed that time of day doesn’t matter when it comes to taking antihypertensive medications.
“The question of when to take antihypertensive medication arose from the observation that high blood pressure at night present greater risk of heart attack and stroke than high blood pressure during the day,” Dr. Scott Garrison of the University of Alberta in Canada, lead author of both trials, told medical news outlet Medscape. It has therefore been suggested that taking an antihypertensive medication at bedtime may better lower blood pressure during the night.
A 2019 Spanish study confirmed this hypothesis. These two new tests contradict this theory. “We are the second of two teams of independent researchers to refute the Spanish group’s findings. I believe that we can now affirm with confidence that the advantages and the risks antihypertensive medications do not vary depending on the time of day where they are used,” says Dr. Scott Garrison.
“Our results suggest that the time of taking blood pressure medications can be adjusted according to individual preferences, and that medications should be taken at the most convenient time and least likely to be forgotten.”
To achieve these new results, in the BedMed study, 3,357 Canadian hypertensive patients were randomly assigned to take their medication antihypertensive in the morning or at bedtimebetween March 2017 and December 2023. As for the BedMed-Frail study, 776 residents of 17 EHPADs in Canada participated between May 2020 and February 2024.
The results of two studies showed no benefit or harm to take antihypertensive medications in the morning rather than at bedtime. “Together, the BedMed trials remove the uncertainty about whether prescribing antihypertensives at bedtime should be actively encouraged, and show that it should not be,” Dr. Scott Garrison told the medical news outlet . “Our results suggest that the time of taking blood pressure medications can be adjusted according to individual preferencesand that medications should be taken at the most opportune time and least likely to be forgotten,” concluded the cardiologist.
