Enhanced parathyroid function in essential hypertension: a homeostatic response to a urinary calcium leak.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Disorders of Ca metabolism are not generally considered important clinically or pathophysiologically in essential hypertension. Recent reports suggest that increased parathyroid gland function may be one of the more common endocrine disturbances associated with hypertension. We measured serum parathyroid hormone (PTH) concentrations and routine blood and urine chemistries in 34 hypertensives. Their mean PTH, 79.1 .+-. 3.1 .mu.l eq/.mu.l, was significantly higher (P < 0.025) than the mean PTH, 66.9 .+-. 3.3, of an age- and sex-matched normotensive control population. The mean serum Ca, 9.5 .+-. 0.1 mg%, was identical in the 2 populations. Compared to a 2nd age- and sex-matched normotensive population, the hypertensives demonstrated a significant (P < 0.005) relative hypercalciuria. For any level of urinary Na, hypertensives excreted more Ca. Parathyroid gland function may be enhanced in essential hypertension. This increased gland activity appears, in part, to be an appropriate, physiologic response to a previously unrecognized relative hypercalciuria, or renal Ca leak, associated with essential hypertension. The increased prevalence of hypertension in subjects with hyperparathyroidism probably represents the final event in a continuum that begins with obligatory urinary Ca losses in hypertensives, but those pathological presentation is hyperparathyroidism. Derivative experiments directed at defining the importance of the preliminary findings in the pathogenesis of human and experimental hypertension are needed.

This publication has 37 references indexed in Scilit: