Chest
Clinical InvestigationsSleep/CPAPRelationship of Arousals From Sleep to Sympathetic Nervous System Activity and BP in Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Section snippets
Subjects
All subjects gave informed consent to the protocol approved by the Institutional Review Board. Sixty-seven subjects (12 women and 55 men) were studied at the University of California San Diego Clinical Research Center. Subjects responded to public service advertisements, were referred from community physicians, or were referred by previous subjects. Subjects ranged in age from 35 to 60 years old, and their weight was between 1.0 and 1.5 times the ideal body weight, as determined from
Results
Table 1provides the subject's characteristics. The sample was composed of roughly equal numbers of subjects with and without sleep apnea, and with and without hypertension. Sleep apnea subjects were slightly older than the nonapneic subjects (50.7 vs 44.5 years old). On average, the subjects were mildly obese (average weight, 122% of ideal body weight using Metropolitan Life norms), 15 and there was no difference between groups in body mass index, cortical arousal indexes (CAIs), TST, or sleep
Discussion
The literature suggests that arousals from sleep lead to transient activation of the SNS.23 However, it is not known if arousal can influence daytime SNS functioning independently of respiratory disturbances during sleep. There are many ways of characterizing SNS function. Urine NE levels are crude markers of SNS activity, but probably approximate an average of the sympathetic tone over the collection period.20 Plasma NE levels, although more affected by the subject's experience just prior to
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This work was supported in part by NIH grants HL44915, AG02711, AG08415, and RR00827.