Salt/aldosterone

It doesn't get nearly as much publicity as it should, but aldesterone is *nearly* as important as cortisol...here's why.

With AF, aldosterone, which maintains salt and potassium levels in the body, gets lowered with chronic AF.

Many patients coming to see Dr. Friedman lately with symptom of fatigue and often symptoms
of salt-craving, “cognitive fuzziness”, dizziness or lightheadedness on standing, or palpitations
have low blood levels of aldosterone. He explains the connection between low aldosterone levels
and fatigue as follows: with low aldosterone, the kidney loses salt, leading to low blood volume.
This coupled with the idea that the leg veins don’t constrict properly, leads to lower blood
volume to the brain and fatigue and other symptoms. These patients often have a drop in their
blood pressure and an increase in their pulse when standing. They may also have decreased
blood flow to the brain when measured by SPECT scan. Aldosterone deficiency may be made
worse if patients restrict their salt intake.
Soon-to-be-published research by Dr. Friedman shows a few patterns of abnormalities in the
renin-aldosterone axis. A little more than half the patients with fatigue had low blood levels of
both renin and aldosterone. This is called hyporeninemic hypoaldosteronism and is probably due Tweet