We were unable to show a difference in serum T-BARswith short daily compared to conventional hemodialysis. Interestingly, phosphate has been shown to stimulate endothelial cell apoptosis which was characterized by increased oxidative stress. It is unclear if the effects of an increase in dialysis frequency and exposure to dialysis tubing and membranes is counterbalanced by the improvements in serum phosphate that have been reported with short daily dialysis. A generalized increase in inflammatory Epimedoside-A markers including IL-6 may occur via a number of mechanisms including volume overload and oxidative stress. We were unable to show a difference in IL-6 or albumin with short daily compared to conventional hemodialysis. In a prospective cohort study of 26 patients treated with short daily HD in-centre, Ayus et al reported significant improvements in hs-CRP values after 12 months. In a crosssectional study by Jefferies et al, lower CRP values were only seen for patients who were doing more frequent dialysis at home compared to those patients who were treated in-centre. Post dialysis sodium, ultrafiltration volumes and ultrafiltration rates were much lower for the patients being treated at home compared to the patients being treated in-centre suggesting that post-dialysis increases in serum sodium and/or interdialytic ECFV expansion may explain these differences. They were unable to demonstrate lower IL-6 levels between patients undergoing conventional and short daily dialysis in-centre who had similar post dialysis serum sodium levels and ultrafiltration rates. The impact of more frequent dialysis on markers of oxidative stress and inflammation requires further study. Our study has a number of limitations including the inability to blind the patients and investigators to the treatment group. We did not measure residual renal function and therefore could not assess the importance of this variable. However, the dialysis vintage of the patients suggests that many of them may have been anuric. Lastly, we did not measure ECFV at baseline and again at the end of the run-in phase; we are therefore unable to comment on the role changes in ECFV in the blood pressure improvement that was seen in the BP optimization phase. Strengths of our study over others that have been published to date include the run-in phase and use of standardized blood pressure algorithm. In summary after a 3-month run-in phase in which blood pressure was optimized by decreasing dialysate sodium, adjusting dry weight and anti-hypertensive medications, patients treated with short daily HD compared to conventional HD require fewer anti-hypertensive medications to achieve the same blood pressure. This effect on blood pressure control was not related to a reduction in ECFV, sympathetic nervous system activity, oxidative stress or inflammation. The mechanism by which short daily HD allows for decreased use of anti-hypertensive medication remains unclear but may be related to effects on sodium balance and changes in peripheral vascular resistance that require further study. It probably diverged from the primate orderabout 85 Procyanidin-B1 million years ago, which are now widely classified as a separate 
taxonomic group of mammals. Consequently, tree shrew is a potentially useful animal model for some human diseases because of closer phylogenetic relationship with human.