Serum Uric Acid Changes in Relation to Nighttime Blood Pressure Dipping Status in Patients on Antihypertensive...

We performed a post hoc exploratory secondary analysis to investigate whether baseline circadian blood pressure (BP) pattern was associated with changes in serum uric acid (SUA) during 8-week antihypertensive therapy. Of the 494 hypertensive patients who received amlodipine (5-10 mg) or nifedipine GITS (30-60 mg) for 8 weeks, 369 patients with available laboratory data and valid follow-up ambulatory BP monitoring data were included in the present analysis, including 221 dippers (nocturnal systolic BP decline ≥ 10%) and 148 non-dippers (nocturnal systolic BP decline < 10%). Analysis of covariance was used to estimate least square mean changes in SUA according to baseline dipping pattern. After 8-week antihypertensive treatment, SUA decreased significantly in dippers (-12.4 ± 3.4 µmol/L, p = 0.0004) but not in non-dippers (-3.3 ± 4.2 µmol/L, p = 0.44). In the repeated-measures analysis, SUA levels decreased significantly over time (p = 0.002), whereas no significant time-by-dipping interaction was observed (p = 0.23). Baseline BP dipping pattern may be modestly associated with short-term SUA changes during antihypertensive therapy. However, the absence of a significant time-by-dipping interaction suggests that these findings should be interpreted cautiously and require further confirmation.