To study the effects of sodium intake on circulatory homeostasis and cardiac structure, changes in cardiac mass, systemic hemodynamics, and organ blood flows were determined in spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) and normotensive Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats after 10 wk of controlled dietary intake of low sodium (0.01%), standard sodium (0.44%), and high sodium (2 levels: 1.44 and 4%). Systemic and regional hemodynamics were measured in conscious rats using the radioactive microsphere reference method. The various dietary sodium manipulations did not cause any changes in systemic and regional hemodynamics in the WKY rats. In contrast, the high-sodium diets increased arterial pressure and total peripheral resistance progressively in the SHR rats while decreasing cardiac index, heart rate, and organ blood flows to heart, kidneys, and splanchnic area. The higher sodium intake (4%) increased total and left ventricular mass index in both the SHR and the WKY rats even though hemodynamics of the WKY rats remained unchanged. These data indicate that the high-sodium diet, in addition to producing general vasoconstriction and exacerbation of hypertension, increased cardiac mass further in SHR rats; it also increased cardiac mass in the WKY rats independent of arterial pressure changes, suggesting that high sodium intake may be an independent pathogenetic factor for the development of cardiac hypertrophy.

To examine whether the failing heart has reached a maximal capacity to increase plasma atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) concentration, the change in plasma immunoreactive ANF level due to acute blood volume expansion was determined in conscious rats with chronic heart failure. Varying degrees of myocardial infarction and thus heart failure were induced by coronary artery ligation 3 wk before study. Compared with controls, infarcted rats had decreases in mean arterial pressure (-10 mmHg, P less than 0.01), cardiac index (-27%, P less than 0.001), renal blood flow (-35%, P less than 0.01), and peak left ventricle-developed pressure after aortic occlusion (an index of pressure generating ability; -15%, P less than 0.01), and increases in central venous pressure (+1.7 mmHg, P less than 0.01), left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (+10 mmHg, P less than 0.001), total peripheral resistance (+28%, P less than 0.01), and plasma ANF level (752 +/- 109 vs. 244 +/- 33 pg/ml, P less than 0.001). Plasma ANF was correlated with infarct size, cardiac filling pressures, and left ventricle pressure-generating ability. At 5 min after 25% blood volume expansion, plasma ANF in rats with heart failure increased by 2,281 +/- 345 pg/ml; the magnitude of the changes in circulating ANF and hemodynamic measurements was similar in controls. The results suggest that plasma ANF level can be used as a reliable index of the severity of heart failure, and that the capacity to increase plasma ANF concentration after acute volume expansion is preserved in rats with heart failure. There was no evidence of a relative deficiency of circulating ANF in this model of heart failure.