Chronic secondary hypertension during pregnancy: impact on maternal renal function

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 09 Apr 2005 - 0:00 PDT


Researchers wanted to study whether inadequate maternal kidney function in pregnancy might contribute to the fetal programming of adult hypertension.

To start, they determined kidney function before and after nitric oxide blockade. The found that renal function was not different between normotensive pregnant and nulliparious (never pregnant) groups. However, after pregnancy in hypertensive rabbits, renal function was reduced by 25% in a damaged kidney, but increased 25% in the non-damaged kidney.

So there was no change in total kidney function, but during pregnancy plasma creatinine levels were significantly increased, suggesting that kidney function may have been further compromised. They also found that the damaged kidney didn't appear to produce nitric oxide; if so, this may account for the further reduction in kidney function in the hypertensive group during pregnancy.

They speculate that kidney dysfunction in this model of pregnancy and hypertension may be a stimulus altering fetal development.

Devaki Maduwegedera, Rebecca L Flower, Kate M Denton, Monash University, Department of Physiology, Melbourne, Australia. Physiology 703.6.

The 35th Congress of the International Union of Physiological Sciences is in San Diego, March 31 - April 5, 2005. The Congress (http://www.iups2005.org) is organized by the six member societies of the U.S. National Committee of the IUPS, the American Physiological Society, the Society for Neuroscience, the Microcirculatory Society, the Society of General Physiologists, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, under the auspices of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

The IUPS conference, held every four years, runs concurrently this year with Experimental Biology 2005 at the San Diego Convention Center.

Abstracts for all presentations may be accessed through a complete searchable online program at faseb.org/meetings/eb2005/call/default.htm covering both IUPS and Experimental Biology 2005, which is being held concurrently.

The American Physiological Society (APS), which is hosting IUPS, was founded in 1887 to foster basic and applied science, much of it relating to human health. The Bethesda, MD-based Society has more than 10,000 members and publishes nearly 4,000 articles every year in its 14 peer-reviewed journals. In May, APS received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM).

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