Effects of taurine on stress-evoked hemodynamic and plasma catecholamine changes in spontaneously hypertensive rats.

Cardiovascular hemodynamics (microspheres) and plasma norepinephrine and epinephrine levels at rest and during short-term shaker stress were investigated in conscious spontaneously hypertensive rats and Wistar-Kyoto rats, with or without oral taurine (1.5%) treatment for 8 weeks. Taurine effects were evaluated by comparing data on the taurine-treated and untreated rats. Taurine affected neither the resting hemodynamics nor the resting plasma catecholamine levels in spontaneously hypertensive and Wistar-Kyoto rats. Taurine slightly but significantly reduced the left ventricular/body weight ratio in the spontaneously hypertensive rats (p less than 0.05) and caused an insignificant 10 mm Hg decrease in the resting mean arterial pressure. Spontaneously hypertensive and Wistar-Kyoto rats responded in a qualitatively similar manner to stress, as evidenced by resistance-dominated increases in mean arterial pressure and increases in heart rate, with a blood flow redistribution from splanchnic, cutaneous, and testicular to skeletal muscle and cerebral circulations and by increases in plasma norepinephrine and epinephrine levels. These changes were more marked in the spontaneously hypertensive rats. Taurine significantly reduced the stress values of mean arterial pressure (untreated, 189 +/- 4 (SE) mm Hg; treated, 166 +/- 4 mm Hg in the spontaneously hypertensive rats; p less than 0.05), while it significantly reduced stress values of heart rate in spontaneously hypertensive and Wistar-Kyoto rats (p less than 0.05). Taurine also blunted the stress values of splanchnic, testicular, and cutaneous vascular resistance in the spontaneously hypertensive rats. There were no or only slight regional effects in the Wistar-Kyoto rats. Taurine substantially decreased plasma levels of norepinephrine (untreated, 615 +/- 76 pg/ml; treated, 383 +/- 49 pg/ml) and epinephrine (untreated, 892 +/- 187 pg/ml; treated, 232 +/- 59 pg/ml) during stress in the spontaneously hypertensive rats. These results indicate that chronic taurine treatment attenuates short-term shaker stress-induced hemodynamic and plasma catecholamine changes in spontaneously hypertensive rats.