Early morning surge in blood pressure

Abstract

Early-morning blood pressure is generally viewed as an important therapeutic target, for two reasons. First, for antihypertensive agents taken once daily in the morning, the timing of the trough plasma drug level, and thereby the lowest pharmacodynamic effect, often coincides with the early morning rise in blood pressure and heart rate. Evidence has been accumulated to suggest that blood pressure control throughout the 24 h period may be necessary to gain complete benefit from antihypertensive medication. In fact, in a longitudinal study, the regression of cardiac hypertrophy in patients with hypertension was more accurately predicted by treatment-induced changes in average 24 h ambulatory blood pressure than by clinic or home-monitored blood pressure readings. The other reason for the importance of morning blood pressure is that cardiovascular risk is heightened at this time of day. A morning surge in sympathetic activity alters haemodynamic forces and predisposes vulnerable coronary atherosclerotic plaques to rupture. At the same time as this risk of plaque rupture is greatest, circadian variations in haemostatic and fibrinolytic factors result in morning hypercoagulability and hypofibrinolysis, promoting the formation of intraluminal thrombi. We recently showed that, in older hypertensives, a greater morning blood pressure surge, mediated at least in part by an exaggerated α-sympathetic activity, is associated with more advanced silent cerebrovascular disease as well as a higher future incidence of stroke. The early morning surge in blood pressure could become a new therapeutic target for preventing target-organ damage and subsequent cardiovascular events in hypertension. Of greatest interest is the potential benefit of a chronotherapeutic approach, involving, for example, long-acting chronoformulations, which has not yet been extensively studied.