Ten healthy subjects received 10 mg oral enalapril (MK 421) daily for a period of 8 days. Renal clearances of electrolytes, urate and phosphate were monitored and factored for glomerular filtration rate, as measured by creatinine clearance, with particular emphasis on the first and eighth day of treatment. Apart from a fall of around 10% in creatinine clearance between 1-2 h on both days 1 and 8, GFR remained unchanged throughout the study. Fractional sodium excretion increased in a biphasic manner by approximately 50% over control between 1-2 h and 4-8 h on day 1. Significant chloruresis (+39.0 +/- 12.9%) and kaluresis (+26.5 +/- 10.3%) occurred between 4-8 h. Urinary pH increased between 0-1 h (+0.29 +/- 0.12; P less than 0.05), and between 4-8 h (+0.50 +/- 0.08; P less than 0.01). The biphasic saluretic effect was also seen between 1-2 h and 4-8 h on day 8. Enalapril caused significant increases in urate and phosphate excretion on day 8 of therapy. There was a biphasic increase in fractional urate excretion at 1-2 h (+28.1 +/- 6.9%; P less than 0.05) and at 4-8 h (+21.0 +/- 6.0% P less than 0.01). Significant phosphaturia (+36.8 +/- 5.2%; P less than 0.05) was also observed at 4-8 h on day 8. Urinary drug excretion was also biphasic; over the first 2 h the predominant drug form was unchanged enalapril, whilst the peak excretion of the diacid metabolite, enalaprilat, occurred at 4-8 h.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)