High Salt Diet Plus Fructose Water Intake Induces Hypertension

Abstract

Evidence in prior studies have indicated that a high salt (HS) diet in combination with high fructose intake results in hypertension. Detailed metabolic parameters have not measured. This study aims to test the metabolism of rats with either a HS diet or a normal salt (NS) diet with and without fructose drinking water. Seven‐week‐old, Sprague‐Dawley (SD), male rats were divided into four groups (n=6 per group). The SD rats were then fed the following diets: NS diet as the control, HS (4% NaCl) diet, NS diet with 20% fructose in drinking water (F), and HS (4% NaCl) diet with 20% fructose in drinking water (HS+F), respectively. Blood pressures of all the rats were then measured twice a week via non‐invasive tail cuff method. Two weeks after the blood pressure measurements, all the rats were then transferred into metabolic cages and housed individually. In the metabolic cages, the rats received the same diet and drinking water as they have had throughout the entire blood pressure study. SD rats were given twenty‐four hours to acclimate to their environment in the metabolic cages and then their water intake, food intake, feces and urine output was measured for three consecutive days. At the beginning of the experiment, results have indicated that there is no significant difference in baseline blood pressure among the four groups. However, A three‐week diet of a HS+F treatment has demonstrated an increase in mean arterial pressure (MAP) by 37 mmHg (p < 0.05) compared to the NS control group. No significant increases were observed in the other two groups (C: 89 ± 5; HS: 97 ± 4; F: 97± 7; HS+F: 126 ± 9 mmHg). Metabolic measurements have shown that there was a significant increase in water intake (C: 27.9 ± 2.0; HS: 59.2 ± 6.4; F: 35.1 ± 5.2; HS+F: 54.8 ± 6.0, mL/24 hours) and urine output (C: 13.5 ± 1.7; HS: 39.7 ± 2.2; F: 13.3± 1.6; HS+F: 28.1 ± 1.4, mL/24 hours) for HS alone and HS+F groups in comparison to the control group. Food intake had substantially decreased in the HS+F group compared to the other three groups (P<0.05) (C: 36.1 ± 3.6, HS: 25.1± 0.9, F: 21.7 ± 0.7, HS+F: 14.5 ± 1.0, mL/24 hours); the feces output data was diverse and does not show significant differences among groups (data not shown). Our results suggest that high salt plus high fructose diet dramatically changes metabolism which alters cardiovascular function.Support or Funding InformationGrant Support: NIH R15HL129213, Shan