High sodium sensitivity implicates nocturnal hypertension in essential hypertension.

We investigated the relationship between sodium sensitivity and diurnal variation of blood pressure in patients with essential hypertension. Twenty-eight inpatients with essential hypertension were maintained on high sodium (12 to 15 g NaCl per day) and low sodium (1 to 3 g NaCl per day) diets for 1 week each. Twenty-four-hour blood pressure and urinary sodium excretion were measured at the end of each diet period, and the sodium sensitivity index was calculated as the ratio of the change in mean arterial pressure to the change in urinary sodium excretion rate by sodium restriction. Patients whose average mean arterial pressure was lowered more than 10% by sodium restriction were assigned to the sodium-sensitive group (n = 16); the remaining patients, whose mean arterial pressure was lowered by less than 10%, were assigned to the non-sodium-sensitive group (n = 12). In the non-sodium-sensitive group, mean arterial pressure and heart rate fell during the nighttime, and average values of systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial pressures during the night were significantly lower than those during the day during both low and high sodium diets. On the other hand, in the sodium-sensitive group, there was no nocturnal fall in mean arterial pressure, and none of the systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial pressure values during the nighttime was different from the respective pressure values during the daytime during either sodium diet. The sodium sensitivity index was positively correlated with the fall in mean arterial pressure during the nighttime during a high sodium diet (r = .55, P < .01). These results indicate that in patients with sodium-sensitive essential hypertension, blood pressure fails to fall during the night. High sodium sensitivity may be a marker of greater risk of renal and cardiovascular complications, as has been found in nondippers, patients whose blood pressure fails to fall during the night.