Abstract
Summary
The effects of dietary sodium levels on renal hypertrophy following unilateral nephrectomy and on renal renin content of the hypertrophic kidney were investigated in the rat.
Renal hypertrophy occurred at the same rate in rats on all sodium diets when expressed in g kidney weight/100 g body weight. However, renal renin content of the hypertrophic kidneys was inversely related to the dietary sodium chloride intake by the 7th day following unilateral nephrectomy and the beginning of the dietary regimen. It is suggested that although renin content increases as hypertrophy occurs in the normal animal, it plays no role in hypertrophy, but is subject to a separate control, on some unknown manner, via dietary intake of sodium chloride. This control occurs even in the presence of the general stimulus for renal hypertrophy in the uninephrectomized animal. The increase in renal renin probably affected the adrenal cortex which was hypertrophic in the uninephrectomized animals on a low sodium diet.
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