When undiagnosed and untreated, hypertension (also known as high blood pressure) causes cardiovascular disease, which is one of the main causes of death and disability in the UK. ‘reverse dippers’, for whom, contrary to expectations, the night-time blood pressure is higher than the day-time blood pressure, when they are up and active.‘non-dippers’, for whom night-time and day-time blood pressure values are not very different, and.‘dippers’, for whom the night-time blood pressure is lower than the day-time blood pressure (which is the case for healthy young people),.When blood pressure is monitored over 24 hours, individuals can be divided into three groups according to their blood pressure pattern:
