Microsoft Word - NEF125BF

Dr. Tsutomu Hirano, The First Department of Internal Medicine, Showa University School of Medicine, 1-5-8 Hatanodai, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 142 (Japan) Dear Sir, Studies in experimental models have suggested that hyperlipidemia may play a role in the development of focal and segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) [1]. We reported that the development of FSGS was able to be suppressed by a lipid-lowering agent, probucol, in aminonucleoside-nephrotic rats (PAN) [2]. This suggests that secondary hyperlipidemia could exacerbate the primary renal lesion. Recently, we found that male Dahl salt-sensitive rats (DS), even when fed a standard rat chow (0.3% NaCl), spontaneously developed FSGS, and the kidney function became worse with age [3]. Therefore, the present study was conducted to examine whether probucol can suppress the development of kidney injury in DS. Male DS aged 15-18 weeks were fed ad libitum either standard rat chow (containing 0.3% NaCl) or the same chow containing 1% probucol (w/w) for 10-11 weeks. Male SpragueDawley rats (SD) of the same age were used as the controls. The mean blood pressure was measured by the tail cuff method [3]. The kidney sections were stained with periodic acidSchiff to examine the degree of FSGS according to the classification, grade 1 to grade 4 (mild-severe), as described previously [2]. The plasma concentrations of triglyceride (TG), cholesterol, high-density li-poprotein (HDL)-cholesterol, apoprotein B, albumin, urea nitrogen and creatinine were measured by the same methods as described previously [2, 3]. The TG secretion rate (TGSR) was determined by the Triton WR1339 method [3]. The results are summarized in table 1. The mean blood pressure was not significantly