Morning Rise of Blood Pressure Assessed by Home Blood Pressure Monitoring Is Associated with Left Ventricular Hypertrophy in Hypertensive Patients Receiving Long-Term Antihypertensive Medication

To assess the influence of morning rise of systolic blood pressure (SBP) as assessed by home blood pressure monitoring on the left ventricular mass index (LVMI) in relation to the blood pressure control status, we evaluated M-mode cardiac echocardiography in 626 hypertensive subjects (412 men and 214 women; mean age, 61.3±10.1 years) who were receiving antihypertensive medication. The subjects were requested to measure their blood pressure at home in the morning and evening over a 3-month period. They were distributed into the following four groups by the average (ME Ave) and the difference (ME Dif) of the morning and evening SBP. The well-controlled hypertensives with a morning rise of SBP (ME Ave<135 mmHg and ME Dif ≥10 mmHg; n =45; 7.2%) had a greater LVMI (122.9±22.7 vs . 92.7±15.6 g/m 2 , p <0.001) than the well-controlled hypertensives without a morning rise of SBP (ME Ave<135 mmHg and ME Dif<10 mmHg; n =367; 58.6%). The uncontrolled hypertensives with a morning rise of SBP (ME Ave≥135 mmHg and ME Dif≥10 mmHg; n =91; 14.5%) also had a greater LVMI (136.8±21.9 vs . 100.2±17.5 g/m 2 , p <0.001) than the uncontrolled hypertensives without a morning rise of SBP (ME Ave≥135 mmHg and ME Dif<10 mmHg; n =123; 19.6%). A stepwise multivariate regression analysis revealed that the ME Dif was the most important factor related to the LVMI ( r 2 =35.1% for all subjects, p <0001; r 2 =39.7% for men, p <0.001; and r 2 =18.7% for women, p <0.001). These results suggest that morning rise of blood pressure is an important factor influencing the development of left ventricular hypertrophy in hypertensive patients on antihypertensive medication.