Essential hypertension: inborn error of sodium metabolism?This work was supported by the United States Atomic Energy Commission.

Abstract

Genetic factors play a decisive role in the development of essential hypertension in man. There are good reasons for believing that Na participates directly in the pathogenesis of the disease. In some rats these 2 factors interact to produce hypertension, but is thus equivalent to essential hypertension in man, The clinical course in rats and man has many similar features; epidemiologic studies in man, and the result of salt feeding to unselected batches of animals show additional resemblances. The similarities between diseases known to result from inborn errors of metabolism and the types of hypertension discussed here are so many that it appears advantageous to consider hypertension as possibly another inborn error of metabolism.