RAISED PLASMA ANGIOTENSIN II AND ALDOSTERONE DURING DIETARY SODIUM RESTRICTION IN MAN

Dietary sodium restriction in five normal subjects led to highly significant increases of plasma-angiotensin-II after 2 days. These changes became even more pronounced after 4 and 5 days. There were parallel increases in plasma-aldosterone. Both angiotensin II and aldosterone returned to control values after sodium repletion. There was a significant positive correlation between concurrent measurements of plasma-aldosterone and plasma-angiotensin-II, and a significant inverse correlation between concurrent plasma-aldosterone and serum-sodium. These findings differ from two other studies of similar design, where dietary sodium restriction produced no detectable change in angiotensin II, despite in one instance a pronounced increase in aldosterone similar to that observed in this study.     

Assessment of printing calculators for use with the LKB reaction rate analyser

Two automatic printing calculators have been used to monitor the output of the LKB 8600 Reaction Rate Analyser in routine serum enzyme assays. The results produced by both instruments correlated well with results produced manually, but neither was entirely satisfactory in detecting non-linear or otherwise unacceptable traces and neither led to a significant improvement in analytical precision. However, their use would reduce the incidence of errors inherent in the manual evaluation of chart traces.