SUMMARY Nineteen patients with normal renin idiopathic hypertension were arbitrarily classified as salt-sensitive or salt-resistant depending on whether their mean arterial pressure did or did not increase by 8% or more when sodium intake was increased. The responses of the two subsets and of five normal subjects to sodium intakes of 9, 109, and 249 mEq/day given for 7 days were as follows: The salt-sensitive subjects retained more sodium than normal and plasma or urinary norepinephrine did not decrease when they were given a high sodium intake; urinary dopamine was normal but did not increase normally when sodium intake was increased. The salt-resistant subjects excreted sodium normally and plasma and urinary norepinephrine was decreased by 30 and 37%, respectively, when they were given a high sodium intake; urinary dopamine was supernormal and did not increase further when sodium intake was increased. Cumulative sodium retention during the high sodium intake was directly related to the percentage of change in plasma norepinephrine in the hypertensive subjects, suggesting that renal adrenergic activity was a factor in the impaired sodium excretion in the salt-sensitive patients. Cumulative sodium retention and the percentage of change hi plasma norepinephrine were inversely related to urinary dopamine in the hypertensive subjects, suggesting that increased formation of dopamine in renal and neural tissue in the salt-resistant subjects may have been responsible for the differences between the subsets hi renal and adrenergic responses to a high sodium intake. Supernormal sodium retention and a failure to suppress adrenergic activity may explain, hi part, the phenomenon of salt sensitivity of blood pressure in salt-sensitive patients and may also be factors in the pathogenesis of hypertension in this subset. (Hypertension 11: 312-319, 1988) KEY WORDS • plasma norepinephrine • urinary dopamine • blood pressure P ATIENTS with hypertension have been arbitrarily defined as salt-sensitive (SS) or saltresistant (SR) based on the response of blood pressure to manipulations of dietary sodium intake or of body fluid volume.1 " 5 Categorization of patients with idiopathic hypertension by these criteria suggests that 25 to 51 % may be SS. '• 6 Studies that compared SS and SR patients suggest that the difference between

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