Is atrial natriuretic peptide-guanosine 3',5' cyclic monophosphate coupling a determinant of urinary sodium excretion in essential hypertension?

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide), published as a randomized controlled trial.

(1) To compare urinary guanosine 3',5' cyclic monophosphate (cyclic GMP) excretion between normotensive subjects and essential hypertensive patients; (2) to determine the influence of changes in sodium intake on urinary cyclic GMP excretion in response to the neutral endopeptidase inhibitor candoxatril in essential hypertensives.

Who Took Part

The study group was 25 patients.

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the patients and researchers unaware of who received ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide).

Some patients received a placebo instead of ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide), giving a reference point.

In the crossover set-up each of the patients took both ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide) and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Blood pressure was measured by ultrasound sphygmomanometry.

Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and urinary cyclic GMP were measured by radioimmunoassay.

Group comparisons were made using unpaired t-tests and two-way analysis of variance.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Atrial Natriuretic Factor, Cyclic GMP, Hypertension, Indans, Natriuresis, Neprilysin and Propionates.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide) in 25 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 1992 (Journal of hypertension), a journal based in Netherlands.

More context: the ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide) compound page, all human trials.