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Salt Sensitivity Research
An excess amount of salt in the body can lead to hypertension. If unchecked, long term hypertension has many drastic effects, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, heart attack, blindness, and kidney failure. Scientists in the Center for Molecular Physiology are studying why some people are able to more effectively regulate their internal salt content and why some people, especially from specific areas of the world, seem to have a natural sensitivity to salt.
- Pedro A. Jose, MD, PhD, Laureano D. Asico, DVM, and Crisanto Escano, DVM, study the causes of salt-sensitivity and hypertension, including the role that dopamine and dopamine receptors in the kidneys may play when it comes to salt regulation. It is believed that specific dopamine regulators may have an effect on the body’s ability to effectively regulate and expel an excess of salt. In a multicenter collaboration they are testing the hypothesis that salt sensitivity involves abnormal regulation of renal sodium transport, and/or an aberrant gastrointestinal-renal reflex axis pathway.
- Adaptation of Euryhaline Crabs to High and Low Salt environment
Dr. Jose, with collaborators at the University of the Philippines, are testing the hypothesis that dopamine receptors are important in the adaptation to changing saline environment through the study of how a specific type of crab adjusts to a changing external salt environment. These studies may provide clues to some of the basic mechanisms of how the mammalian kidney learns to adapt to low and high salt intake.
Faculty who study salt-sensitivity
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