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Urinary Sodium, Potassium and Aldosterone in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy¹

Division of Medical Research, Veterans Administration Hospital, and Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio 44106

Four adolescent boys with Duchenne (progressive) muscular dystrophy (DMD) of 10–11 years duration and six normal boys of similar age were studied on a metabolism ward for 22 days. Sodium and potassium intake was as follows: Period I, Na 60 mEq, K 60 mEq; Period II, Na 10, K 60; Period III, Na 10, K 95–150; Period IV, Na 60, K 60. The differences between the DMD group and the group of normal boys for sodium and potassium in serum and urine and for urinary aldosterone were not significant. These findings show that the pathologically elevated sodium-potassium ratio in skeletal muscle of patients with DMD is not due to increased aldosterone or other causes of renal wastage of potassium.

¹ Veterans Administration Project No. 3046 (N 1-64). This project was supported in part by the Muscular Disease Society of Northeastern Ohio. The clinical studies were carried out, in part, in the Clinical Research Center of the University Hospitals of Cleveland supported by Grant No. Fr-80-01 of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Public Health Service. These data were presented at the 56th Annual Meeting of the Endocrine Society, June 1974.

Received November 3, 1975.