CHRONIC HYPERTENSION IN PREGNANCY: IMPACT ON RENAL TISSUE NORADRENALEVE AND RESPONSE TO NERVE STIMULATION IN OFFSPRING

摘要

Background: While the concept of fetal programming developed by Barker and colleagues has largely been confirmed by animal studies, there is limited understanding of the mechanisms behind the programming of adult disease. We have previously shown that adult blood pressure is increased in female but not male, offspring of rabbit mothers with chronic secondary hypertension1. Recently, we demonstrated that kidney noradrenaline content was reduced by ~20% in offspring of hypertensive mothers at birth, suggesting that development of the renal sympathetic nerves was altered. Given the strong evidence implicating over-activity of the sympathetic nervous system hi human essential hypertension, our aim was to determine if the response to renal nerve stimulation (RNS) was enhanced in offspring at 10 weeks of age, a time prior to the rise in blood pressure in the offspring of hypertensive mothers.