[Anti-hypertensive treatment and chronotherapy : when should the pill be taken ?]

When should antihypertensive treatments be administered ? The concept of chronotherapy has been attractive for several years, in connection with the importance of circadian variations in blood pressure. The "too" promising results of the Hygia study argue in its favour. Yet experts caution us about the methodology and results of this study. Vesperal administration of routine anti-hypertensive treatments in all patients is not recommended to date, with a non-negligible risk of excessively lowering the nocturnal blood pressure in some patients (increase of ischemic risk in target organ damage) and on the other hand reducing therapeutic adherence by increasing the number of drug doses. Chronotherapy will therefore only be fully effective if patients are willing to adhere to it.