Chest
Clinical InvestigationsPulmonary Function and Respiratory Chemosensitivity in Moderately Obese Patients with Sleep Apnea
Section snippets
METHODS
The study was designed to compare the waking pulmonary function and ventilatory responses to progressive hypercapnia and hypoxia of moderately obese, normocapnic sleep apnea patients with those of a matched control group. Thirty-five patients with sleep apnea underwent full-night sleep studies and testing of waking pulmonary function and hypoxic and hypercapnic ventilatory responses. None of the patients was following a prescribed diet at the time of the evaluation.
The control group was
RESULTS
The sleep apnea patients were 51 ± 11 (mean ± SD) years of age, 172.3 ± 7.5 cm in height, and were moderately obese, weighing 103.6 ± 17.7 kg with a body mass idex of 34 ± 5. Thirty-two patients were male, and three were female. Their sleep parameters (Table 1) indicate moderate to severe sleep apnea with marked daytime somnolence. Thirty-two patients had predominantly obstructive and mixed apnea and three had predominantly central apnea. The control population (16 men and 1 woman) was matched
DISCUSSION
The major findings of this study were that compared with matched control subjects, normocapnic, moderately obese sleep apnea patients have a reduced slope of their waking ventilatory response to hypercapnia and an elevated PaCO2. No significant difference was demonstrated between groups in the waking hypoxic ventilatory response. The patients with sleep apnea and control subjects, however, did not differ regarding obesity, intrathoracic or extrathoracic airflow obstruction, or ability to
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Lorena Clary for her secretarial assistance and Dr. Morris Gold for his help with the statistical analysis.
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Supported by NIH R01 HL37379-01, NIH P01AG04402-01AG, and Maryland Chapter of American Lung Association
Dr. Schwartz is a recipient of NIH Clinical Investigator Award HL02031-01A1