Showing papers by "Ronald M. Lauer published in 1976"

Blood pressure, salt preference, salt threshold, and relative weight.

Abstract: • This study was performed to observe the relationships of salt preference, salt threshold, and relative weight to blood pressure. Three groups were selected from 4,800 school children on the basis of mean blood pressure: ≤ fifth percentile, in the area of the 50th percentile, and ≥ 95th percentile. Salt threshold was determined by titrating, on each subject's tongue, solutions ranging from 1 to 60 millimols/liter of sodium chloride. Salt preference was tested by the addition of salt by each subject to unsalted tomato juice and beef broth according to individual taste. The samples were then analyzed for sodium concentration. The coefficient of correlation for the amount of salt added to juice and broth was significant (r = 0.63). There was no relationship of salt threshold to preference, nor did threshold or preference relate to blood pressure. Relative weight was related to blood pressure with subjects in the highest pressure range being the most obese. ( Am J Dis Child 130:493-497, 1976)

Hemodynamic effects of vasodilator agents in dogs with experimental ventricular septal defects.

Abstract: The ratio of pulmonary to systemic vascular resistance (Rp/Rs) largely determines the amount of left-to-right shunting and pulmonary to systemic flow rat (Qp/Qs) in the presence of a large isolated ventricular septal defect. The possibility that pharmacologic reduction of systemic vascular resistance with alpha-adrenergic receptor blockade or beta-adrenergic receptor stimulation would increase the ratio Rp/Rs, and therefore reduce the ratio Qp/Qs, was studied in dogs in which ventricular septal defects had been surgically created. Administration of phentolamine and phenoxybenzamine caused a 42% reduction in Rs and no reduction in Rp. Qs was unchanged and Qp declined by 24% and the ratio Qp/Qs fell by 32%. Infusion of the beta-adrenergic receptor stimulant isoproterenol also reduced Qp/Qs. However, this was accomplished as a result of an increase in Qs and at the expense of an increase in heart rate. As a decline in the ratio Qp/Qs has been shown to be beneficial to patients with large left-to-right shunts, pharmacologic reduction of systemic vascular resistance may prove to be helpful in treating congestive heart failure in those patients with large left-to-right shunts at the ventricular level who are refractory to the usual decongestive measures.