Altered Taste Perception for Sodium Chloride in Patients With Primary Aldosteronism: A Prospective Cohort Study

Rodents exposed to mineralocorticoid excess have considerably decreased taste sensitivity for sodium chloride (NaCl) and show high dietary sodium intake. A similar shift in NaCl taste perception could be detrimental in humans when aldosterone excess in primary aldosteronism (PA) causes hypertension and favors high sodium consumption. To investigate NaCl taste sensitivity in patients with PA, we studied NaCl taste recognition thresholds as measures of NaCl taste sensitivity in forty patients with PA before and after treatment of aldosterone excess. Forty patients with primary hypertension and 40 healthy normotensive volunteers served as controls. In this context, the subjects compared 10 different NaCl solutions (0.5–256 mmol/L) with distilled water. We also assessed individual NaCl intake using self-reported 24-hour recalls and duplicate determinations of sodium excretion in 24-hour urine. Patients with PA showed significantly higher NaCl taste recognition thresholds (median 32 versus 24 mmol/L in primary hypertension, P=0.010, and 16 mmol/l in normotensive control, P