Hypertension and cardiac hypertrophy in growth hormone-deficient rats

Abstract

Growth hormone may influence cardiac growth during post-natal maturation or in response to hypertension, and the growth-hormone deficient dwarf rat model offers an opportunity to study this question. We compared the blood pressure and heart weight of dwarf rats and Fischer (F344) control rats in early adulthood, after two hypertensive stimuli: unilateral renal ischaemia (two-kidney, one-clip) or the administration of deoxycorticosterone acetate and saline drinking fluid. In untreated animals at 13 weeks of age the body weight of dwarf rats was significantly less than that of F344 rats, but the mean arterial pressure was similar. Although the hearts of dwarf rats were smaller than those of F3..