Effects of chronic excess salt feeding. Induction of self-sustaining hypertension in rats.

Hypertension was induced in female rats by chronic feeding of sodium-containing salts in excess. The hypertension so induced appeared to be self-sustaining since about two-thirds of the animals failed to show a significant fall in blood pressure after withdrawal of these salts from the diet. Under the conditions of these experiments a lack of response to restriction of dietary sodium does not exclude an etiologic relationship between salt intake and development of hypertension.