Circadian blood pressure pattern in positive drug responsive hypertensives, hypertensives and normotensives, and gender influences.

Abstract

Circadian rhythm is a characteristic behavior of human physiology and it is known that, in healthy subjects, blood pressure (BP) increases during the day and decreases during the night, as a result of sleep-wake changes. Some studies highlighted that female had lower office BP values than male and this should be considered for define the threshold of hypertension. With the introduction of the Holter Blood Pressure Measurement, it has been possible to record the blood pressure for 24 hours. This innovation allowed to analyze the circadian Blood pressure pattern (CBPP) and some studies identified the differences between normotensives and hypertensives subjects. In this study, we examined the circadian pattern in positive drug responsive hypertensive patients in respect of negative ones and of normotensive subjects and the differences due to gender. The results demonstrated that positive drug responsive hypertensive patients had the same circadian blood pressure pattern as normotensives. Moreover, the difference in circadian blood pressure values between male and female was about 2-4 mmHg.