title: The relationships between cortisol levels, insulin levels, and thyroid hormones with 24-h urinary sodium excretion in never treated essential hypertensive patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To study the relationship between cortisol, insulin, and thyroid hormone levels with 24-h urinary sodium (Na) excretion levels in essential hypertensive patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  All patients underwent history taking, physical examination, blood pressure (BP) measurement, 12 lead electocardiographic evaluation, routine urine analysis, biochemical analysis including measurement of cortisol, insulin, and thyroid hormone levels, 24-h urine collection to measure urinary Na and protein excretion and creatinine clearance.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In total, 68 newly diagnosed hypertensive patients were included. Spearman correlation analysis revealed that 24-h urinary Na excretion was correlated with insulin levels (ρ = -0.473, P < 0.0001), serum cortisol levels (ρ = -0.404, P = 0.0010) and creatinine clearance (ρ = 0.407, P = 0.0010). Linear regression of independent factors has revealed that systolic BP (B = 0.004, CI = 0.001-0.008, P = 0.0170), body mass index (B = 0.014, CI = 0.005-0.023, P = 0.0030), being male (B = 0.077, CI = 0.001-0.153, P = 0.0480), creatinine clearance (B = 0.003, CI = 0.001-0.006, P = 0.0120) and insulin levels (B = -0.008, CI = -0.014 to -0.002, P = 0.0070) were independently related with logarithmically converted 24-h Na excretion.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In conclusion, we found that insulin but not cortisol and thyroid hormone levels were independently related with 24-h urinary Na excretion in newly diagnosed essential hypertensive patients.
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Nephrology, Konya Numune State Hospital, Selcuklu/Konya, Turkey.
authors.forename: Baris
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Afsar
authors.affiliation: General Practitioner, Department of Biochemistry, Konya Numune State Hospital, Selcuklu/Konya, Turkey.
authors.forename: Mahmut
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ay
keywords: Cortisol; Hypertension Insulin; Sodium; Thyroid