What controls the release of glucocorticosteroids like cortisol is ACTH.

What controls the release of aldosterone and other mineralcorticosteroids is this

RAAS.

This aldosterone that is released from the adrenal cortex (due to the angiotensin-2)
will affect the kidneys.
Aldosterone will make the kidneys do three things:
Increases Potassium excretion; Potassium in the blood stream is excreted into the
urine (to be eliminated). That compensates for when your blood potassium level is
too high (one of the 3 original triggers!). When the K+ is too high, the RAA system
causes the potassium to be excreted out. Remember when we talked about
Hyperkalemia we said the reason there’s no warning label on every Chiquita banana
for its potassium content because your kidneys will excrete it out.
Increase salt retention: It causes your kidneys to retain salt and compensate for low
sodium levels. Instead of kidneys peeing out that salt, you retain it.
Increase water retention which together with the increased salt retention, that causes
your blood pressure to increase in your vessels. This is not like ADH. ADH causes
you to retain ONLY water to dilute the salt. Here you retain both salt and water, so
you are retaining isotonic fluid. The purpose of this is to expand your blood volume
and by doing that, that raises your blood pressure, and that compensates for what
initiated this reflex (a drop in blood pressure). If you have a cut and you’re losing
blood, your blood pressure will drop. If you increase the amount of water and salt
retention, you will increase the blood pressure. How cool is that?
The Aldosterone will raise the BP, raise Na+, decrease K+ because it causes the
kidney to retain salt and water. People always confuse this with Anti-Diuretic Hormone
(ADH), so make sure you don’t. :)
What’s the difference between ADH and Aldosterone?
If you eat food that’s high in salts, you increase the tonicity of your bloodstream when
it’s absorbed and become hypertonic. That triggers ADH which causes your kidneys to
retain water and only water. A drop in blood pressure will also cause ADH release
because there’s a multiplicity to the body all the time.
There’s never been a clinical case of somebody overproducing ADH. But there are
clinical cases of lower than normal ADH levels (deficiency) which goes by the name of
diabetes insipidus. What’s diabetes insipidus? If you can’t make ADH, you pee a