Endocrine Factors in Renal Hypertension

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Abstract
For purposes of this review, renal hypertension is considered to include experimental renal, renoprival, and spontaneous (essential ?) hypertensions (in the dog and other spp.) and clinical renal and essential hypertensions (in man). There is good evidence that the kidney functions as an endocrine organ in the pathogenesis of these experimental hypertensions but similar evidence for clinical renal and essential hypertensions is highly circumstantial. The anterior pituitary and the adrenal cortex show changes in function in experimental renal hypertension and in clinical renal and essential hypertensions but the pathogenetic significance of these changes remains to be determined. With the possible exceptions of the posterior pituitary and the adrenal medulla, the other orthodox glands of internal secretion do not show any important changes in function in renal hypertension. Numerous areas of deficit, uncertainty, and conflict in our knowledge of the endocrines in renal hypertension were pointed out. Pathophysiologic interrelations among the experimental hypertensions produced by alterations in renal, endocrine (anterior pituitary and adrenal cortex), and central nervous system functions were indicated.