Acute Effects of Short‐term Fasting on Blood Pressure, Circulating Noradrenaline and Efferent Sympathetic Nerve Activity
Abstract
ABSTRACT Eleven moderately obese women, aged 46–62 years, with a body mass index of 29–34 and with borderline hypertension (repeated diastolic blood pressure >90 mmHg) fasted for 48 hours. Before the fast and after 48 hours of fasting, plasma noradrenaline, urinary noradrenaline, urine potassium, urine sodium and weight were measured. In six of the patients muscle nerve sympathetic activity was recorded from the peroneal nerve by tungsten micro‐electrodes for 15 min each time. The efferent muscle sympathetic activity (MSA) was expressed as the number of bursts/min. The recordings were done before the fast and after 48 hours of fasting. We found significant decreases in body weight from 88.4±2.5 kg to 86.4±2.5 kg. Systolic blood pressure (BP) was reduced from 158±3 mmHg to 146±5 mmHg (p<0.001) and diastolic BP from 96±3 mmHg to 89±3 mmHg (p<0.01) during the fast. MSA was significantly increased from 42.0±5.5 bursts/min to 44.5±5.8 (n=6), while plasma and urine noradrenaline concentrations (n = 11) showed a non‐significant tendency to increase. We conclude that the hypotensive response during the first days of extensive caloric reduction is not due to a decreased sympathetic activity. If anything, there may be weak increase of efferent sympathetic nerve activity and venous plasma levels of circulating noradrenaline. The mechanisms behind the acute hypotensive response to negative caloric balance are thus still unclear, but obviously different from long‐term adaptation of the blood pressure.
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Urine norepinephrine levels showed a nonsignificant tendency to increase during fasting.
“Urine norepinephrine levels showed a nonsignificant tendency to increase during the fasting studies, consistent with previous data (20)”
From The role of falling leptin levels in the neuroendocrine and metabolic adaptation to short-term starvation in healthy men (2003) · cites this paper as [20]
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- Authors
- ANDERSSON, B., WALLIN, G., HEDNER, T., AHLBERG, A., & ANDERSSON, O. K.
- Affiliations
- Sahlgrenska University Hospital (SE)
- Corresponding author
- ANDERSSON, OVE K.
- ORCID
- ANDERSSON, BJÖRN
- Venue
- Acta Medica Scandinavica
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1988-01-12
- Volume
- 223
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 485-490
- ISSN
- 0001-6101 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2081862719
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 1.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Acta Medica Scandinavica (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Dietary Effects on Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Blood Pressure and Hypertension Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Cardiovascular Syncope and Autonomic Disorders
- Keywords
- short-term fasting, blood pressure, norepinephrine, muscle sympathetic nerve activity, borderline hypertension, obesity, caloric restriction, hypotensive response, sympathetic nervous system, urinary noradrenaline, plasma norepinephrine
- MeSH terms
- Blood Pressure, Efferent Pathways, Fasting, Female, Humans, Hypertension, Middle Aged, Muscles, Norepinephrine, Obesity, Sympathetic Nervous System, Time Factors
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