[Characteristics of water-electrolyte balance in patients with labile essential hypertension and various approaches to the optimal therapy with diuretics and low-sodium diet].

A study of 56 males, aged 22 to 56 years, with uncomplicated essential hypertension, stages IB-IIA, where pretreatment examination was followed by repeat investigation after 4 or 5 weeks of treatment with diuretics or low-sodium diets with strict (less than 2 g), moderate (up to 3 g), or mild (4-4.5 g) restriction of sodium uptake, demonstrated a tendency to sodium retention with fluid redistribution from the interstitium to intravascular space in the presence of diuretic treatment. Where dietary sodium was reduced, extracellular sodium was increased owing to increased residual sodium, while total metabolic sodium dropped, and extracellular fluid increased owing to the increase in interstitial fluid. All three variants of the low-sodium diet produced changes in sodium metabolism, with a drop in systemic residual sodium and arterial blood pressure. It is proposed to use strict limitation of dietary sodium for a limited period of time, to be followed by a transition to mildly limited sodium uptake after arterial BP is brought down and stabilized.