Moderately Decreased Dietary Salt Intake Suppresses the Progression of Renal Insufficiency in Rats with 5/6 Nephrectomy

Aim. Up to now, an appropriate salt intake in renal insufficiency has not been clearly determined. We hypothesize that even a moderate decrease in salt intake may affect functional and morphologic response of the rat remnant kidney after 5/6 nephrectomy. Methods. Subtotal nephrectomy was performed in 77 inbred 12 week-old-female AVN Wistar rats. The two groups of rats were fed either a standard or a low salt diet. Median of salt intake was 14.6 and 10.4 mg/100 g/24 h in the two groups. Results. Ten weeks after ablation, the remnant kidney parenchyma wet weight was 0.66 ± 0.16 g/100 g of body weight and 0.56 ± 0.11 g/100 g of body weight (P<0.01) in rats with a standard and low salt diet, respectively. In these two groups, systolic blood pressure was 151 ± 29 versus 126 ± 21 mmHg (P<0.05), serum creatinine levels were 164 ± 84 versus 106 ± 29 µmol/L (P<0.001), proteinuria was 84 ± 37 versus 83 ± 40 mg/100 g/24 h (N.S.), and the glomerular injury score was 2.06 ± 0.49 versus 1.43 ± 0.62 (P<0.01), respectively. Conclusion. Moderately decreased salt intake slowed down the development of ablation nephropathy in AVN inbred strain of rats