Habitual excessive dietary salt intake and blood pressure levels in renal transplant recipients.
We observed that renal transplant recipients with good graft function (mean serum creatinine level 1.5 mg/dl +/- 0.5 SD, N = 68) had dietary salt intakes (estimated from serial measurements of 24-hour sodium excretion rate) which averaged 43 percent higher than that of a comparable group of healthy subjects. There was no correlation between blood pressure levels and salt intake and, despite the high dietary salt intake, hypertension was present in only 29 patients and was usually mild; mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures were 132 +/- 10 mm Hg and 89 +/- 7 mm Hg, respectively while the patients were receiving antihypertensive medication (median number of standard doses of antihypertensive medication was 1.0 doses/patient patient per day). These observations suggest that high dietary salt intake does not exert a powerful blood pressure elevating effect, since any effect of high dietary salt intake to raise blood pressure should have been magnified in the renal transplant recipients because of their reduced renal mass and their chronic glucocorticoid therapy.
D000328:Adult; D000959:Antihypertensive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D001794:Blood Pressure; D001835:Body Weight; D004435:Eating; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology; D016030:Kidney Transplantation; D008297:Male; D012964:Sodium / Q000652:urine; D012965:Sodium Chloride / Q000008:administration & dosage*
D000959:Antihypertensive Agents; D012965:Sodium Chloride; D012964:Sodium