Heart Beat: Aspirin before bed

Content provided by the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School

Heart Beat: Aspirin before bed

Heart Beat

Aspirin before bed

If aspirin is part of your daily medication routine, taking it before bedtime might improve your blood pressure even as it does its main job — working against heart attack and stroke.

In a small Spanish study, taking low-dose aspirin at night lowered daytime systolic blood pressure (the top number of a blood pressure reading) by 7 points and diastolic pressure (the bottom number) by 5 points among people with newly diagnosed mild high blood pressure. That's as much as occurs with exercise or limiting salt. Taking aspirin in the morning increased both systolic and diastolic blood pressure by about 2 points.

Other studies have shown that nighttime aspirin may also be easier on the stomach than aspirin taken in the morning.

If you don't take aspirin, this one study shouldn't prompt you to start, especially not as a way to lower your blood pressure. But if you already take aspirin, it may be worth switching to a nighttime dose.

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Last updated:	September 05, 2008

Medical content reviewed by the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School. Harvard Health Publications, Copyright © 2007 by President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. Used with permission of StayWell.

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