Taking blood pressure drugs before bed halves risk of type 2 diabetes

According to experts, this was a significant step forward in the fight against the disease which has a devastating impact.

After accounting for other factors that can influence a person’s likelihood of developing diabetes-including waist circumference, an individual’s fasting glucose and whether or not he or she had chronic kidney disease-the researchers concluded that shifting medication-taking from morning to night drove down the average subject’s likelihood of developing diabetes by 57 percent.

Further analysis found similar reductions in diabetes risk when it came to taking a range of medications used to treat blood pressure before bed rather than in the morning.

The first paper described that lowering blood pressure during sleeping hours may be a potential target for intervention to prevent new onset of diabetes.

None of the participants had diabetes at the start of the trial.

In an initial study, the investigators found that “non-dippers” tended to have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, compared with people whose blood pressure decreased normally during sleep.

These patients were divided into two groups. Thursday’s papers are among a recent string of studies that link sleep patterns-or disruption of sleep-with development of diabetes and problems with high blood pressure.

High blood pressure costs the USA an estimated $46 billion every year.

“One of the reasons why people are advised to take their blood pressure medications in the morning is because blood pressure is normally higher during the day than at night while you’re sleeping”. During a median follow-up of 6 years, 171 participants developed T2D.

For this study, 2,012 people with high blood pressure were randomly assigned to either take all of their hypertension medication upon awakening or to take the entire daily dose of one or more of their prescribed medication at bedtime.

Prevalence of “non-dipping” – whereby blood pressure during sleep-time falls by less than 10% compared with daytime blood pressure – was lower in those who took their medication at bedtime. “Maybe the ideal time for blood pressure treatment is at night”. Treatment at night versus morning.

These studies were published September 23 in the journal Diabetologia.