Enhanced vascular reactivity to norepinephrine in salt-sensitive patients with hypertension.

Twenty patients with hypertension were studied under diets containing low and high salt to identify factors which might be involved in elevating blood pressure under sodium-loading. They were classified as "salt-sensitive" (SS) and "nonsalt-sensitive" (NSS) according to the presence or absence of greater than 10% increases in mean blood pressure when a low salt diet was replaced by a high salt diet. During high-sodium intake, the SS patients showed reduced urinary excretion of sodium and elevated plasma levels of aldosterone as compared with plasma renin activity. The SS patients also showed an enhanced pressor response to norepinephrine under both low-sodium and high-sodium diets. From these results, it is suggested that the sodium retention, which is probably related to nonsuppressed levels of PAC under sodium-loading, is one of the factors in elevating blood pressure in the SS patients. Moreover, the enhanced pressor response to norepinephrine seems to contribute, in part, to elevation of blood pressure in the SS patients under salt-loading.