**3.2 Antihypertensive action**

In animal examinations, cilnidipine has a slow-onset and long-lasting antihypertensive action in spontaneously hypertensive rats, renal hypertensive rats, DOCA-salt hypertensive rats, and 2-kidney 1-clip hypertensive dogs. In addition, cilnidipine significantly decreases the blood pressure of stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (Watanabe et al. 1995a) and Dahl salt-sensitive rats (Aritomi et al., 2010).

In clinical studies, the antihypertensive effect of cilnidipine has been demonstrated in hypertensive patients, and also in patients with severe hypertension or with complications such as chronic kidney disease, cerebrovascular disease and diabetes. Cilnidipine has been reported to improve some hypertensive conditions closely associated with sympathetic nerve activation such as morning hypertension, nocturnal hypertension, white-coat phenomenon, mental stress and cold stress (Yamagishi, 2006).
