Membranes Seminar

Abstract

Dietary salt raises blood pressure and therefore increases the risk of cardiovascular and kidney disease. Dietary potassium, however, has a blood pressure-lowering effect. In fact, salt substitution (i.e., partially replacing sodium chloride by potassium chloride) is currently being propagated as a public health measure to improve health globally. But how does this work? Recent data indicate that the kidneys have a sensor for potassium. Once this potassium sensor becomes activated, the kidneys start excreting salt. Through this mechanism dietary potassium serves as a diuretic agent with anti-hypertensive properties. But what about kidney patients for whom potassium is supposedly dangerous? More dietary potassium intake seems to protect kidneys even in kidney patients and we are currently conducting a clinical trial to study this. In this presentation, these novel developments will be discussed connecting “channels to clinics”.

Zoom meeting: https://aarhusuniversity.zoom.us/j/62609432221

Ewout Hoorn is a Professor of Nephrology at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where his lab studies the role of kidney tubular function in human diseases such as hypertension and chronic kidney disease. Clinically, he focuses on rare kidney diseases including inherited tubulopathies and polycystic kidney disease.

On behalf of the organizer
Søren Brandt Poulsen
Administrative Research Theme Coordinator
MEMBRANES