Changes in cardiac output during the development of renal hypertension in sodium-depleted dogs.

1. Chronic renovascular hypertension developed in uninephrectomized, sodium-depleted dogs in association with a decrease in cardiac output. 2. With sodium and volume repletion of these animals, cardiac output returned to normal but the high level of arterial pressure was unchanged; consequently, the peripheral arterioles dilated. 3. These observations provide evidence against the theory of whole-body autoregulation.