How does salt raise blood pressure? A hypothesis.

Abstract

Existing data in the literature indicate that .alpha.2-adrenergic receptor agonists have a profound hypotensive action, that sodium attenuates the affinity of .alpha.2-adrenergic receptors for agonists, that the location of these receptors in the central nervous system is mainly at the sites of cardiovascular regulation, and that these sites exert a constant tonic inhibition of sympathetic vasoconstrictor tone. This article proposes the theory that sodium exerts its hypertensive action by decreasing the state of affinity of the .alpha.-adrenergic receptors of the central nervous system for locally occurring agonist neurotransmitters, which results in disinhibition of sympathoinhibitory neurons and leads to the hyperadrenergic state characteristic of salt-induced hypertension.