Salt sensitive human hypertension.

Heterogeneity exists among humans in the responses of blood pressure to alterations in sodium and extracellular fluid volume status. A variety of approaches have been utilized to characterize sodium responsivity of blood pressure including rapid volume expansion and contraction and dietary sodium manipulation. Studies conducted in our laboratories over the past 15 years have enabled us to examine salt sensitivity of blood pressure in different ways and to characterize this phenomenon as well as to define neurohumoral, demographic and genetic factors associated with it in normotensive and hypertensive humans.