Contribution of elevated peripheral resistance to acute volume loaded hypertension in dogs

The role of peripheral resistance in volume loaded hypertension was examined by measuring changes in hemodynamic and humoral factors during dextran infusion for one hour, and for three hours after stopping the infusion in 30 anesthetized dogs. The mean blood pressure was elevated significantly (118%, p less than 0.01), accompanied by increased cardiac output (170%, p less than 0.01) during volume loading. In the recovery period, cardiac output returned to the basal level while the total peripheral resistance gradually increased (118%, p less than 0.01) contributing to the maintenance of high blood pressure (108%, p less than 0.01). There was no significant correlation between the hematocrit change and the increase in peripheral resistance in the recovery period. The levels of plasma norepinephrine, epinephrine, renin activity and vasopressin were suppressed by volume loading. These results demonstrated the importance of increase in peripheral resistance for maintaining high blood pressure in this acute volume excess model. The participation of the renin-angiotensin system, the sympathetic nervous system and vasopressin were all excluded and vascular structural changes were most unlikely to be involved in this acute experiment. It remains unknown whether this conversion is attributable to the summation of local autoregulation or to some other factors.