Erythrocyte sodium transport and blood pressure in white subjects.

The mechanisms that define the relation between blood pressure and sodium handling are not yet well understood. Although several abnormalities in sodium transport have been associated with hypertension, a link between the blood pressure of normotensive subjects and the erythrocyte sodium-potassium adenosine triphosphatase pump, the principal sodium transporter of sodium, has not been previously demonstrated. Data from independent measurements of erythrocyte intracellular sodium, ouabain-sensitive sodium efflux, and the number of sodium pump sites per red blood cell were used to calculate a second-order rate constant for ouabain-sensitive sodium efflux. Among 20 normotensive white subjects, this rate constant correlated significantly (p less than 0.005) with mean arterial blood pressure. A significant correlation was not observed between the rate constant and the blood pressure of 22 hypertensive subjects. A hypothesis is proposed, which suggests that the sodium efflux rate constant of erythrocytes is related to the control of sodium reabsorption via the sodium pump of the renal tubules and that an elevated erythrocyte rate constant may be associated with chronic increased sodium reabsorption, which leads to volume expansion and the development of hypertension.