The state of certain humoral systems and haemodynamics in healthy subjects and in patients with essential hypertension with excessive salt intake
Nekrasova, A.A.; Fatula, M.I.; Patrusheva, N.F.; Chernova, N.A.; Suvorov, Y.I.; Gazarian, G.A.
Cor et Vasa 22(1-2): 85-96
1980
ISSN/ISBN: 0010-8650 PMID: 6995019 Document Number: 166818
To investigate peculiarities of the clinical course and of the pathogenetic mechanisms of essential hypertension in individuals with excessive salt intake (up to 25 g/day) 40 healthy subjects and 110 patients with essential hypertensin (EH) were examined; they inhabit a rural region in which the spring water has an excessive salt content (Transcarpathian Ukraine, USSR). Healthy subjects and patients with EH, consuming usual amounts of salt in the food (10-12 g/day) served as controls. In healthy subjects with long-term excessive salt consumption a renal hormonal adaptation occurs, facilitating intensified Na excretion. In such individuals defects simultaneously occur in humoral regulation: the production of mineralocorticoids does not decrease but increases occasionally, despite excessive Na and water contents in the organism; the synthesis of prostaglandin E in tissues is lowered, and the plasma renin activity is not adequate to the salt overlaod. The intensification of the defects of humoral regulation during chronic excessive salt intake may be a cause of the higher frequency of arterial hypertension in such subjects. Disturbances of humoral regulation in hypertensives with increased salt consumption (elevated aldosterone in the organism, lowered kallikrein excretion, rise in the prostaglandin F/E ratio, increased plasma renin activity as a response to salt overload) may be responsible for the specific features of the clinical course of the disease in such patients (Na and water retention, high total peripheral resistance and high diastolic pressure).