Aldosterone antagonists

History

Hans Selye, a Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist, studied the effects of aldosterone antagonists on rats and found that the use of one of the first aldosterone antagonists, spironolactone, protected them from aldosterone-induced cardiac necrosis. The same year, 1959, spironolactone was launched as a potassium-sparing diuretic. It became clear years later that aldosterone antagonists inhibit a specific receptor protein. This protein has high affinity for aldosterone but also for cortisol in humans and corticosterone in mice and rats. For this reason, aldosterone antagonists were called mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists.