Hey all - first post in forum. Very forward thinking, mostly healthy 25 y/o male posting here. Designing my life and activities with longevity in mind - building solid foundations while also taking advantage of the latest (e.g., rapamycin).
I had a question for the very knowledgable folks I’ve seen in this forum. I’ve been consistently seeing high BP readings on my Withings blood pressure monitor nearly every night at the same time. Systolic is usually in mid 130s, but diastolic is usually in 60s. For context, I exercise every day, eat mostly well (paleo, cutting down on sodium within reason), and generally take care of myself.
Given the incredible importance of blood pressure, I’m wondering if it makes sense to try telmisartan under a doc’s supervision. I’m interested in optimizing BP here but wary that I could bottom out diastolic, as I’m not sure how telmisartan affects systolic or diastolic differently. I’m also trying to understand the very high pulse pressure - is it something to worry about or potentially because of high cardiac output? The telmisartan longevity benefits are intriguing and of prime consideration as well, but I understand they don’t start until the highest recommended dose (at least PPAR, but maybe other ARB general benefits are intact).
I’d welcome and be grateful for any thoughts or guidance.
Good question CTStan - no, this is hours after exercise, right before bed. Thanks for sharing - mind providing details on before / after numbers and dosage?
Based on my experience @ice, I don’t see any downside in experimenting. It can take several weeks for all of the BP lowering feedback loops to fully stabilize with telmisartan but you should see at least some effect in the first day or two. To be safe, you might take it in the AM during your experiment (rather than the recommended PM) because its effects will be diminished before the early hours of the morning when your sleeping heartrate and DBP may be lowest.
Telmisartan’s effects on my BP have been primarily on my SBP but my DBP (already somewhat lower, typically 68-75) has been affected slightly, dropping to 64-75. Not much but significant.
I don’t know what kind of minimum DBP you need when sleeping but I’ll bet someone here does.
With respect to the longevity benefits and the necessity of dosing at 80 mg/day or higher: that recommendation is not based on exhaustive research. My read is that some benefits might be there at 40 mg/day. Starting as young as you are, you might be OK with this more conservative approach for the time being.
That’s an impressive drop @CTStan. I didn’t get that much. Are those readings across the day? My telmisartan controlled BP is in the neighborhood of 120/72 in the AM and 105-110/65 in the late afternoon.
Your BP drop is exceptional. A 2022 report on a dozen or so studies showed a mean SBP drop from 11 to 34 with the central tendency being close to 18-20 (just eyeballing the data).