Excretion of Na and H2 O and hypertension after adrenal enucleation or compression

An attempt was made to analyze the participation of the several independent variables that must contribute to the reproted inability of large male adrenal-enucleate rats withintact kidneys to normally excrete sodium following a light oral sodium load. This was prompted by a desire to understand whether the phenomenon was improtant to development of adrenal-regeneration hypertension (ARH). The results indicated that sdoium retention required the presence of both kidneys as it was not evident in unilaterally nephrectomized rats. The failure of ARH to develop in rats having both kidneys argues against a cause-and-effect relationship between the two phenomena. Sex does not appear to be important to sodium retention. Various fasting periods were employed, but with none of them did rats with a single kidney exhibit sodium retention. Since the conditions necessary to elicit imparied sodium excretion are incompatible with the induction of ARH and those essential to development of ARH prevent significant sodium retention, the two must be considered as independent manifestations of distrubed glandular function.