salt-sensitive hypertension (ssHTN)

Etiology

• habitual high dietary sodium with low dietary potassium

Epidemiology

• may be more common in African Americans than whites
• may be more common in overweight & obese, even in children & adolescents

Pathology

• expansion of intravascular volume
• proliferation of lymphatic vessels under the skin that store excess fluid; this lessens intravascular volume, thus, attenuates the rise in blood pressure that resuls from initial salt loading (in mice)
• proliferation of lymphatic vessels is produced by the angiogenesis molecule VEGF-C, which is stimulated by another molecule NFAT5 (TonEBP) that is produced in response to hypertonic conditions
• defects in this system may cause salt-sensitive hypertension

Management

• dietary salt restriction (low-salt diet, DASH diet)
• diuretic as adjunct to diet may be necessary

More general terms

• chronic hypertension