title: Plasma levels of atrial natriuretic factor in mild to moderate hypertensives without signs of left ventricular hypertrophy: correlation with the known duration of hypertension.
abstract: The relationship between plasma atrial natriuretic factor (ANF), blood pressure (BP), age, plasma renin activity (PRA) and urinary sodium excretion was studied in 64 normal subjects (mean age 48.7 +/- 2.1 yrs; BP: 126.5 +/- 1.6/79.5 +/- 0.9 mmHg) and in 104 untreated uncomplicated essential hypertensives (50.8 +/- 1.1 yrs; BP: 164.7 +/- 1.6/105.2 +/- 0.6 mmHg). ANF was measured by radioimmunoassay after extraction on C18 columns. ANF was significantly higher in the hypertensives than in the normal subjects (37.1 +/- 1.2 vs 29.7 +/- 1.5 pg/ml, P less than 0.01). In normals plasma ANF was significantly correlated with age (r = 0.72, P less than 0.001), Na excretion (r = 0.42, P less than 0.001) and PRA (r = -0.71, P less than 0.001) whereas in the hypertensives ANF plasma levels correlated only with systolic (r = 0.46, P less than 0.001) and diastolic (r = 0.51, P less than 0.001) BP. In addition in hypertensive patients, by multivariate linear regression analysis, a significant correlation was found between age, known duration of hypertension and plasma ANF. The partial correlation coefficient between duration of hypertension and plasma ANF was highly significant (r = 0.80, P less than 0.001). These findings suggest that in essential hypertension the level of arterial BP is a main determinant of the ANF plasma values offsetting the ability of other physiological factors to regulate plasma ANF levels.
authors.affiliation: Instituto di Patologia Medica, Ancona University, Italy.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dessì-Fulgheri
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Palermo
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Di Noto
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Conti
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rinaldi
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tesei
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Russo
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rappelli
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D009320:Atrial Natriuretic Factor / Q000097:blood*; D006332:Cardiomegaly / Q000097:blood* / Q000150:complications; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000097:blood* / Q000150:complications; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011863:Radioimmunoassay; D012084:Renin-Angiotensin System
chemical_list: D009320:Atrial Natriuretic Factor