52-year-old Aunt Liu is a patient with hypertension. He has been taking nifedipine sustained-release tablets for many years. In order to complete the whole day of physical labor, Aunt Liu usually starts taking medicine after getting up in the morning.
After breakfast, Aunt Liu went to the community for a walk, accidentally heard several hypertensive patients in the community say: It is best to take high blood pressure drugs at night.
All Aunt Liu has always been taking medicine in the morning and she began to be a little shaken, because she had heard other patients say that taking medicine at night is better to lower blood pressure. Taking medicine in the morning suddenly lowers blood pressure in , which may also cause cerebral ischemia and may also cause life danger.
But Aunt Liu has been taking medicine as per the doctor's advice. The doctor said that he must take medicine in the morning, but now more and more people recommend taking medicine at night, which has made Aunt Liu confused. Should antihypertensive medicine be taken in the morning or at night?
The correct answer to this question is given by Thomas M MacDonald's team from the Department of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Dundee, UK. Their research results have been published in the internationally renowned journal "The Lancet". The research team selected 21,104 patients with hypertension and as experimental specimens and specially divided the samples into two groups, one group took the medication between 6:00 and 10:00 in the morning, and the other group took the medication between 20:00 and 00:00 in the evening.
Research article screenshot
The study results found that the incidence of secondary cardiovascular disease in the night group was 3.4%, while in the morning group was 3.7%, and the difference between the two was very small.
Overall, the experimental group taking medicine at night was relatively low in the morning, but the control group taking medicine in the morning was also low in the blood pressure measurement of . The difference between the two was very small. The difference between systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure is less than 2mmHg.
Previously, many experts also said that taking medicine at night will be better than in the morning.
However, through this large-scale data study, the hypothesis that taking antihypertensive drugs at night is better than taking medication in the morning is not true, because there is no difference in the risk of cardiovascular events in different medication time groups.
Comparison of the risk difference between morning and evening medications
In other words, for patients with hypertension, taking medicines in the morning and evening has very low effects on them. As long as they can lower blood pressure based on their actual situation without affecting their daily life, it is feasible.
It is worth noting that once you are diagnosed with hypertension, you must insist on taking medicine. This is the principle. Some patients refuse to take medicine due to long-term physical and mental fatigue. Some patients stop taking the medication by themselves as long as they think their blood pressure is stable. This practice is incorrect.
Because blood pressure is the basic pressure of human physiological metabolic, it will damage people's heart, brain, kidneys and other organs, and the damage is irreversible. This is a chronic disease with many effects, and involves many organs. Once a problem occurs in one party and is not treated in time, it will cause a variety of health problems.
So, once you take hypertensive drugs, you must insist on taking medication for life. Stopping the medication by yourself is very harmful. I hope everyone will look at this issue rationally.
Reference materials:
[1]https://m.toutiao.com/is/MntytaM/
[2]blood pressure Lowering Treatment Trialists' Collaboration. Pharmacological blood pressure lowering for primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease across different levels of blood pressure: an individual participant-level data meta-analysis. Lancet. 2021 May 1;397(10285):1625-1636. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00590-0. Erratum in: Lancet. 2021 May 22;397(10288):1884. PMID: 33933205; PMCID: PMC8102467.
