Volume 2, Number 4, December 2001

Aldosterone-induced vasculopathy: a new reversible cause of cardiac death
Allan D Struthers

The idea arising is that the key culprit mechanism with regard to aldosterone may well be its ability to produce a vasculopathy characterised by nitric oxide (NO) deficit, and that aldosterone-induced fibrosis and aldosterone-induced autonomic imbalance could be a consequence of aldosterone vasculopathy.
Aldosterone thus exerts harmful effects on the key processes which promote cardiac death; on endothelial dysfunction, on myocardial fibrosis and on sympathovagal imbalance. It is possible that they are all attributable, to some extent, to a novel aldosterone-induced vasculopathy, which produces a relative deficit of vascular NO. The future should now explore whether aldosterone-induced vasculopathy is a phenomenon only occurring in chronic heart failure, or whether this also occurs in other diseases.

JRAAS 2001;2:211-214.

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