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Nature Medicine 14, 14 - 16 (2008)
doi:10.1038/nm0108-14

Vasopressin: friend or foe?

Mark A Knepper1 & Robert A Star2

  1. Mark A. Knepper is in the Laboratory of Kidney and Electrolyte Metabolism, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, US National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA. e-mail: knep@helix.nih.gov
  2. Robert A. Star is in the Renal Diagnostics and Therapeutics Unit, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health. Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.

Vasopressin plays a vital part in homeostasis by regulating water excretion in the kidney. But it seems that vasopressin also dampens the inflammatory response to uropathogenic Escherichia coli—a finding that adds to a growing list of adverse actions of the 'antidiuretic hormone'.

Vasopressin is an inconvenient hormone to be without. When untreated, people lacking this nine-amino-acid peptide hormone (in central diabetes insipidus) or its target receptor (in X-linked nephrogenic diabetes insipidus), experience a marked, sustained increase in water excretion, requiring virtually continuous drinking, day and night, to prevent dehydration.

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