Increased dietary salt intake does not raise blood pressure in all hypertensive person; those whose blood pressure rise in response to high salt diets or fall with salt restrictions are term salt sensitive.
Salt sensitivity, even in those who are non-hypertensive, has been found to confer its own cardiovascular risks, including indirect hypertension and cardiovascular death.
Factors influencing salt sensitivity include obesity, age, race, plasma renin level, sympathetic nervous system activity, and the response of concomitant disease such as diabetes mellitus and renal insufficiency.
Salt sensitivity occurs with greater frequency and severity in non-hypertensive African Americans than in non-hypertensive Whites.
Salt sensitivity is accompanied by decreased plasma renin activity. For adults as well as children, renin levels for Blacks are typically lower than for Whites across blood pressure status group.
The degree of salt sensitivity increases exponentially with declining kidney –function, As patients approach end-stage renal disease the great majority are salt sensitive.
Salt sensitivity
