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Many studies indicate that patients with essential hypertension have a greater natriuretic response to rapidly administered sodium chloride solutions than have normotensive individuals (1-7). However, in most instances other factors known to influence the rate of sodium excretion in the normal subject such as diet, posture, and time of day have not been rigidly controlled (8, 9). Dietary control is of particular importance in view of observations suggesting that patients with hypertension may habitually ingest more salt than do normotensive individuals (10-11). If this is indeed the case it might well be responsible for the enhanced response of the hypertensive patient to administered salt.The present report is concerned with a comparison of the response of hypertensive and normotensive individuals to the intravenous administration of an "isotonic-balanced" salt solution under rigidly controlled conditions and at three different levels of dietary salt ingestion. The results indicate that patients with essential hypertension excrete the infused sodium load more rapidly than do normotensive individuals at each level of salt consumption. METHODSFour niormal Caucasian males aged 29 to 36 and 6 Caucasian patients aged 24 to 63 with essential hypertension were studied. The patients were selected on the basis of their maintaining a resting diastolic blood pressure of at least 100 mm Hg while hospitalized and consuming a diet containing approximately 10 mEq of sodium daily. Five of the 6 subjects were observed in this manner for 13 to 47 days prior to study, while Patient 8 received the low salt diet for 8 days prior to study. No patient had congestive heart failure, although no. 5 had

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