[Metabolic effects of changes in dietary sodium intake in patients with essential hypertension].

Background: To evaluate the metabolic effects of modification of sodium intake in patients with essential hypertension.

Methods: Thirteen patients with essential hypertension (10 M, median age 51 yrs, range 21-64) followed in random order a low-sodium and a high-sodium diet (50 mmol Na/day vs 250 mmol/day for two weeks each). At the end of each diet an evaluation was made of 24 hour blood pressure (ABPM, Spacelabs 90207) and serum concentration of: glucose, total and HDL cholesterol, uric acid, lipoproteins A, B, Lp(a), total proteins, albumin.

Effects of angiotensin II blockade on nitric oxide blood levels in IgA nephropathy.

Background: The effects of renin-angiotensin system blockade on nitric oxide (NO), especially in pathological conditions, are far from being established. The influence of kinins and angiotensin type 2 receptor are largely speculative and based mainly on animal studies. This study was aimed to address these aspects in humans.

[Glomerulonephritis in the elderly].

The authors present a clinical analysis of the literature data regarding aged patients affected with glomerulonephritis (GN) and of 115 GN patients aged more than 65 years, biopsied in their own Center. Complications of renal biopsy, including the subclinical ones, were found in 19.1% of old patients compared to 19.

Urinary endothelin in glomerulonephritis patients with normal renal function.

The vasoconstrictor peptide endothelin-1 (ET1) has only recently been characterized and its effects are at present largely speculative. It has been hypothesized that ET1 acts on mesangial cells to cause vasoactive changes which might ultimately contribute to the development of glomerulosclerosis. Opposite to ET1, nitric oxide (NO) inhibits mesangial cell contraction and proliferation.

[Course and significance of various biochemical parameters in 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 therapy of uremic osteodystrophy].

Thirty-seven osteodystrophic and chronically haemodialyzed patients have been treated for 1-22 months by means of 1,25(OH)2D3. Under treatment a marked improvement of symptomatology and radiographic findings has been observed in the majority of cases; from the haematochemical viewpoint a rise of calcemia and phosphoremia, a fall in alkaline phosphatase and a variable course of PTH have been observed. Several episodes of asymptomatic hypercalcemia ceased with posology reduction; only 3 cases needed stopping the treatment for this reason, one of them definitively; 12/37 cases needed hypophosphoric diets and increase in oral aluminium hydroxide doses to control hyperphosphoremia.

[Rosette E and active rosette E tests in the evaluation of cell-mediated immunity in uremic patients].

To evaluate cellular immunity in uremia, we studied 235 uremic patients (178 on regular hemodialysis and 57 on medical treatment). E-rosettes were significantly lower (p less than 0.01) in all patients.