Extracellular volume expansion may lead to elevated blood pressure. This long-term adaptation of the vascular bed to extracellular volume overload is considered a multifactorial and not perfectly understood ‘autoregulatory’ event, which is difficult to measure. In this issue, Ebah and colleagues demonstrate a direct relationship between fluid overload and pressure in CKD patients. Surprise, instead of intravascular volume, interstitial fluids and pressures were measured. Finally!
If you ask a nephrologist how and why constancy of extracellular body fluids is rigorously controlled, you probably will be taken on a virtual tour and introduced to a nephrocentric world. You will learn that constancy in amount and concentration of the fluids that bath our body’s cells was a prerequisite for living an independent life once our ancestors left the salty sea and moved forward to the arid land. You will hear that the kidneys filter 180 Liters or water and per day and reabsorb precisely that amount needed to maintain extracellular water content constant. Perhaps you may be told that this process includes filtration of 1500–2000 g of salt, which again will be exactly reabsorbed except of the 9 g of dietary salt that must be excreted to maintain daily steady state sodium balance. Otherwise, edema occurs. And just in case you believe that 21st century research must focus on molecular detail instead of old fashioned electrolyte balance physiology, we can dive deep into the world of renal epithelial transporters and their molecular regulation, understand how any dysbalance between salt intake and renal excretion will inevitably lead to volume overload, and learn that a new steady state between salt intake and renal salt excretion is achieved at the price of arterial hypertension. Even certain selected genes will confirm the concept: the kidneys control blood composition by differential transfer of electrolyte and water into the urine. Such carefully purified blood volume readily equilibrates with interstitial fluids and thereby ensures constancy of body fluid composition and blood pressure. It seems as if differential transfer of salt and water into the urine can explain almost everything there is to know about extracellular fluid composition. The clinical readout to understand salt and water disorders is thus traditionally based on investigation of blood composition, urine composition, acute body weight changes, and their associated changes in pressure.
Living in this nephrocentric world is peaceful; most everything is clear. However, simple questions such as: ‘Where is the extracellular fluid located?’, or ‘Which pressures are important for maintenance of interstitial fluid homeostasis?’ define current basic physiological problems that may have not yet entered the clinical arena. Ebah and colleagues have addressed these questions and conducted an unusual clinical research project. They investigated the relationship between interstitial fluid composition and interstitial fluid pressures in the skin of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and in healthy control subjects.1 The study is remarkable because each individual patient underwent a most careful clinical examination, including the measurement of edema refill time. I am afraid that I have never measured edema refill time in any of my patients; I probably should have. These clinician-scientists also inserted wick needles (not wicked) in their patient’s skin and measured interstitial fluid pressure. The authors then analyzed how interstitial fluid overload, as measured by impedance technology, relates to edema and interstitial fluid pressures. They show that interstitial fluid pressures are negative (−0.9 mm Hg) in healthy controls, and elevated to a positive range (+4.6 mm Hg) in CDK patients with edema. While no correlation between body fluid volumes and blood pressure was found, the amount of sequestered water was directly related to interstitial fluid pressure. This finding suggests that the subcutaneous fluid compartment represents a relatively ‘closed’ compartment in which a tightly coupled pressure-volume relationship exists. The study, which is appealing in its simplicity, may disturb the peaceful nephrocentric world on body fluid composition and suggests that there is more to learn. The kidneys could control extracellular fluid composition everywhere in our body only if extracellular fluids would readily equilibrate. However, this idea implies that there are no real barriers between the intravascular and the interstitial space. Skin and skeletal muscle are the largest organs of the body and contain most of the extracellular volume. If we insist that renal blood purification is the mechanism by which the kidneys control interstitial fluid composition almost exclusively, isn’t it then almost heresy to suggest that this subcutaneous compartment, which is the largest interstitial fluid space, is a relatively ‘closed’ compartment?
Interstitial fluid pressure is determined by a complex interplay between the fluid influx (blood capillary filtration), the fluid outflow (lymph flow), and the compartment’s ability to expand (tissue compliance).2 Interstitial fluid pressure is thus regulated locally at the tissue level. The basic principles of interstitial fluid exchange were developed more than a century ago3 and have been subject of several modifications, resulting in the Starling equation for transmembrane flux, as shown in Figure 1. Hydrostatic and colloid osmotic pressures are referred to as ‘Starling’s forces’. Capillary filtration pressures and interstitial colloid osmotic pressures support transmembrane flux from the capillary into the interstitium, while interstitial fluid pressures and intra-capillary colloid osmotic pressures lead to reabsorption of fluids. The data presented by Ebah are in line with the idea that interstitial pressures in the skin under normal conditions are negative in humans. However, a closer look at Figure 1 suggests that the interstitial fluid pressure increase by 5–6 mm Hg that was found in CKD patients must have been associated with compensatory changes in the local microcirculation. Increasing interstitial fluid pressure may lead to reduced transcapillary filtration into the interstitium (and prevent further fluid influx), or to increased lymph flow (and increase fluid outflow). Comparing this state-of-affairs in CDK patients with acute and with chronic edema, the investigators observed that acute interstitial volume overload was associated with relatively brisk increases in interstitial fluid pressures, while interstitial fluid excess in chronic edema led to only moderate increases in interstitial fluid pressure. This finding suggests that compliance of the interstitial space is a third additional determinant for interstitial fluid pressure homeostasis.4 While it remains unclear which cellular and extracellular matrix components regulate skin tissue compliance in humans, experiments in animals suggest that fibroblasts may control skin tissue compliance and thereby regulate interstitial fluid pressure by β1-integrin mediated contraction of dermal collagen fibers.5
Figure 1.
Figure 1 - Unfortunately we are unable to provide accessible alternative text for this. If you require assistance to access this image, please contact help@nature.com or the author
Starling forces and their relevance for interstitial fluid and pressure homeostasis. Hydrostatic and colloid osmotic pressures are referred to as Starling forces. Capillary filtration pressures (P(c)) and interstitial colloid osmotic pressures (COP(if)) support transmembrane flux from the capillary into the interstitium, while interstitial fluid pressures (P(if)) and intra-capillary colloid osmotic pressures (COP(c)) lead to reabsorption of fluids. The original Starling equation has been modified and updated by capillary reflection coefficients, hydraulic permeability, and local interstitial protein gradients. Besides interstitial fluid content, tissue compliance is an important factor for the generation of interstitial pressure. Additional recent advances in understanding the molecular regulation of lymphangiogenesis provide new insights into outflow of filtrated interstitial fluid via the lymph capillary network. Background is an immunofluorescent view of real lymph vessels (green) and adjacent capillaries (red) courtesy of Agnes Schröder, University of Erlangen.
Full figure and legend (138K)
Collagen and glycosaminoglycans (GAG) are polyanionic macromolecules, resulting in a microenvironment, which attracts cations and repel anions. Tissue components with high GAG density therefore could have lower albumin concentrations, lower interstitial oncotic pressures, and lower water flux than predicted. Updated versions of the original Starling model suggest that the Starling forces driving fluid exchange at the capillary level may only occur immediately distal to the blood capillary filtration barrier.6 Also not incorporated into the traditional Starling equation are recent data claiming that skin Na+ content is significantly increased in the skin interstitium and is not paralleled by commensurate water retention in rats and mice fed a high-salt diet.7 This water-free Na+ storage is paralleled by infiltration of regulatory macrophages, which increase the density of cutaneous lymph capillaries. Most recent data suggest that these macrophages exert their regulatory activity in an effort to locally control interstitial electrolyte composition in the skin via lymph capillary electrolyte clearance in response to interstitial hypertonicity. Similar to renal electrolyte and fluid elimination, this clearance process is coupled with systemic blood pressure control (in press).
For maintenance of interstitial fluid homeostasis, the net flux of filtered plasma is balanced by lymph fluid formation into the initial lymphatic vessels. Three mechanisms for the uptake
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