Alterations of dietary calcium intake as a therapeutic modality in essential hypertension.

Alterations of calcium metabolism in hypertensive disease have been increasingly observed, although the specific manner in which these alterations contribute to the increased blood pressure remains unclear. We have studied calcium metabolism in essential hypertension and have adopted an approach based on analysis of renin system activity, which emphasizes the heterogeneity of human hypertensive disease. With this approach we have defined parallel deviations of plasma renin activity, circulating ionized calcium, and calcium-regulating hormones, which suggest a calcium deficiency in some hypertensives and, an excess of calcium in others. These deviations can be used to predict and may mediate the blood pressure sensitivity of hypertensives to dietary salt, and may also target those individuals most likely to benefit from oral calcium supplementation. Calcium itself has enhanced antihypertensive effects in low renin subjects, having lower ionized calcium and higher endogenous 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D values, and in subjects on higher dietary salt intakes. Calcium may alter pressure, at least in part, by suppressing endogenous vitamin D metabolites and by stimulating calcitonin secretion. We hypothesize that calcium-regulating hormones participate in the physiology of the renin-angiotensin system and in the pathophysiology of human hypertension.