The effect of intra‐arterial endothelin on resting blood flow and sympathetically mediated vasoconstriction in the forearm of man.

J. R. Cockcroft*, JG Clarke, DJ Webb

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

1. The hypothesis that endothelin (ET) influences sympathetically mediated vasoconstriction was investigated in 13 healthy, male subjects. 2. ET (1 pmol min‐1) was infused for 60 min into the left brachial arteries of seven healthy male subjects. Resting forearm blood flow, and sympathetic vasoconstriction produced by lower body negative pressure (LBNP; 15 mm Hg), was measured in both arms by strain gauge plethysmography. In a further six subjects, noradrenaline (NA) was infused intra‐arterially at doses of 150‐600 pmol min‐1, with and without co‐infusion of ET (1 pmol min‐1), with blood flow measured in both forearms. 3. ET produced a small but significant reduction of blood flow in the infused forearm from 3.9 +/‐ 0.6 ml 100 ml‐1 min‐1 during infusion of saline, to 3.3 +/‐ 0.7 ml 100 ml‐1 min‐1 during infusion of ET at 60 min (P less than 0.05). Blood flow in the non‐ infused forearm was not altered by ET infusion. 4. NA produced a significant and dose‐dependent reduction of blood flow in the infused forearm from 3.13 +/‐ 0.5 ml 100 ml‐1 min‐1 during saline infusion, to 1.49 +/‐ 0.2 ml 100 ml‐1 min‐1 with NA at 600 pmol min‐1 (P less than 0.001). During co‐infusion of ET, blood flow was reduced similarly in the infused arm from 3.15 +/‐ 0.7 ml 100 ml‐1 min‐1 during saline infusion to 1.55 +/‐ 0.2 ml 100 ml‐1 min‐1 with NA at 600 pmol min‐1. Blood flow in the non‐infused arm was not altered by ET and NA infusion.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) 1991 The British Pharmacological Society

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)521-524
Number of pages4
JournalBritish Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
Volume31
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1991

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