Differing noradrenaline kinetics in essential hypertension and depressive illness, two diseases in which the plasma concentration of noradrenaline is sometimes elevated.
1. The rate of spill-over of noradrenaline to plasma, and neuronal noradrenaline uptake, which influences spill-over, were studied in patients with essential hypertension and depressive illness. 2. Noradrenaline spill-over was increased in seven of thirty-four patients with essential hypertension and five of eleven patients with primary depressive illness, compared with values in seventeen normal subjects (range 1.0-3.63 nmol/min per m2). 3. Faulty neuronal reuptake of noradrenaline seemed to be the cause of higher noradrenaline spill-over in patients with essential hypertension. Increased sympathetic nerve firing rates apparently were responsible in the primary depressives, despite their normal blood pressure. 4. These puzzling findings suggest that hypertension occurs when neurotransmitter excess is due to defective noradrenaline reuptake (in essential hypertension), but not chronically increased nerve firing (in depressive illness).
D000328:Adult; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000097:blood*; D007700:Kinetics; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism; D009638:Norepinephrine / Q000097:blood* / Q000378:metabolism; D013997:Time Factors; D014316:Tritium
D014316:Tritium; D009638:Norepinephrine