New study results reveal that early risers and night owls should take blood pressure medications at different times of the day to reduce the risk of heart attacks. According to an article from New Atlas, citing the journal Clinical Medicine, the study investigated whether the human body's internal clock affects the medication's effectiveness. Biological rhythms are the internal "clocks" that nearly all tissues and cells operate on in the background, collectively set to a 24-hour day/night cycle. Disruption of the body's biological clock rhythms has been linked to various medical conditions, including heart attacks, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer. The internal clock is also known to play a role in regulating blood pressure, directly impacting heart health.
Body rhythms vary significantly from person to person. For example, there are "morning people," who wake up early and have peak alertness at the beginning of the day, and "night owls," who prefer to sleep in and reach their peak alertness later, sometimes even at night. Researchers from the University of Dundee in Scotland and the Helmholtz Munich Research Center in Germany found that circadian behaviors, referred to as "chronotypes," influence the effectiveness of blood pressure-lowering medications.
Kenneth Dyar, a biologist studying biological clocks at Helmholtz Munich and a co-researcher on the study, stated, "Everyone has an internal biological clock that determines their chronotype, whether they are a morning or evening person." He noted that this internal timing is genetically defined and affects biological functions over a 24-hour period, including gene expression, blood pressure rhythms, and how the body responds to medications.
The researchers determined each participant's chronotype through a questionnaire about their morning or evening preferences. They analyzed the correlations between medication dosing times and chronotype, exploring their joint effects on hospitalization rates due to non-fatal heart attacks or non-fatal strokes.
The researchers observed a decrease in the rate of non-fatal heart attacks when dosing times were synchronized with chronotypes, indicating that morning people who took their medications in the morning and night owls who took their medications in the evening were less likely to be hospitalized for a non-fatal heart attack. No significant correlation was found between dosing time and chronotype in stroke events.
Participants with evening chronotypes were associated with an increased risk of hospitalization for a non-fatal heart attack if they took antihypertensive medications in the morning, while there was reduced risk if they took them in the evening. Filippo Piegazzani, an honorary consultant cardiologist at the University of Dundee and another lead researcher on the study, remarked, "The study first showed that considering chronotype when determining the timing of antihypertensive medication - personalized time therapy - can reduce the risk of heart attacks." He suggested that the study's findings indicate that doctors should consider individual chronotypes when prescribing blood pressure medications, as it is an easy-to-assess approach to improve outcomes using existing treatments.
