Does altered sodium intake affect plasma concentrations of BNP and proBNP in healthy individuals and patients with compensated heart failure?
High sodium intake significantly increases plasma BNP but not proBNP, suggesting dietary sodium should be standardized before BNP measurement to reduce intra-individual variability.
AIMS: Plasma B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and proBNP are promising markers for treatment of heart failure (HF), but the intra-individual biological variation is high. We investigated whether changes in sodium intake and posture contribute to this variation. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 12 healthy individuals and 12 patients with medically treated compensated HF were examined after 1 week of low (70 mmol 1.61 g per day) and 1 week of high (250 mmol 5.75 g per day) sodium intake. Plasma volume and plasma concentrations of BNP and proBNP were determined after 1 h in seated and 1 h in supine position. In healthy individuals, the plasma BNP concentration increased significantly on high sodium intake with a ratio (high sodium/low sodium) of 2.00 (1.32-3.03, P = 0.004). The corresponding values for HF patients were 1.69 (1.25-2.29, P = 0.003). The plasma BNP concentration changed modestly by a posture change, with a plasma BNP ratio (supine/seated) of 1.15 (1.07-1.14, P = 0.001) and 1.06 (0.99-1.24, P = 0.088) in healthy subjects and HF patients, respectively. Plasma proBNP concentrations were neither significantly affected by posture nor by sodium intake. CONCLUSION: Sodium intake has a considerable effect on plasma BNP and therefore contributes to the intra-individual variability. We suggest dietary sodium intake to be standardized at least 3 days prior to blood sampling for the determination of plasma BNP.
Damgaard et al. (Wed,) studied this question.