Arginine vasopressin and osmolality in the elderly

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Vasopressin, published as a randomized controlled trial.

To evaluate the influence of age on plasma arginine vasopressin (AVP) concentrations and the relationship between plasma AVP and serum osmolality in younger and older subjects, and in the elderly, to assess the effect of gender on plasma AVP concentration and to determine the impact of prostaglandin blockade on renal responsiveness to AVP.

Who Took Part

The study group was 45 adults.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

The Renal Laboratory, Royal North Shore Hospital (younger adults) and Clinical Room, St Vincents Hospital (elderly subjects).

45 younger adults (35 +/- 9 years), and 41 elderly subjects (29 males, 12 females; 78 +/- 3 years).

How the Study Was Run

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

The adults were allocated by chance, so the Vasopressin group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the adults and researchers unaware of who received Vasopressin.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Vasopressin group a baseline to be compared against.

In the crossover set-up each of the adults took both Vasopressin and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

A time span of 1 month appears in the methods.

Cross-sectional study; randomized, double-blind, crossover, placebo-controlled study.

All subjects were healthy and non-institutionalized.

Blood samples were drawn from all younger and elderly subjects.

The elderly subjects were randomly allocated indomethacin or placebo for 1 month.

Following a 1 to 2-week washout, the alternative was administered for a further 1 month.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Age Factors, Aging, Arginine Vasopressin, Cross-Sectional Studies, Indomethacin, Kidney and Osmolar Concentration.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Vasopressin in 45 adults over 1 month.

Results are reported in around 8 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 1994 (Journal of the American Geriatrics Society), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Vasopressin compound page, all human trials.