The cardiovascular effects and pharmacokinetics of once-daily enalapril were studied after single-dose and subchronic treatment in eight patients with hypertension by use of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. Enalapril, 10 mg, was given at either 7 AM or 7 PM in a randomized crossover design. In addition, inhibition of serum converting enzyme was studied. Subchronic treatment at 7 AM significantly reduced blood pressure during the day but was less effective at night. Subchronic dosing at 7 PM significantly further decreased nighttime blood pressure followed by a slow increase during the day, with no effect on elevated afternoon values. Peak concentrations of enalaprilat were found 3.5 hours (morning) and 5.6 hours (evening) after drug intake (p < 0.05), whereas peak effects occurred 7.4 hours (morning) and 12 hours (evening) after drug administration. In conclusion, 24-hour blood pressure profiles in patients with hypertension were significantly influenced by the time of enalapril dosing. Differences in effect profiles could not be attributed to similar changes in pharmacokinetics or to different time courses of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibition.

Possible circadian changes in the pharmacokinetics and effect on serum angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) activity of the ACE inhibitor enalapril have been studied in 8 healthy subjects after oral ingestion of 10 mg enalapril maleate either at 08.00 h or 20.00 h. The time to peak serum concentration (tmax) of enalapril was increased after administration at 20.00 h compared to 08.00 h (2.4 h versus 1.3 h), whereas other kinetic parameters were not significantly altered. The 24 h-kinetics of the active metabolite enalaprilat did not differ significantly between the two treatments, but the area under the curve (AUC (0-24] and the peak serum concentration (Cmax) were slightly higher after intake at 20.00 h. The relationship between the measured serum enalaprilat level and the degree of inhibition of serum ACE was the same after both treatments. Overall, the evening and morning administration of enalapril did not differ markedly in the pharmacokinetics and the time course of ACE inhibition.

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