Effects of intermittent hypoxia on blood gases plasma catecholamine and blood pressure.

Obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) is a disorder characterized by repetitive episodes of complete (apnoea) or partial (hypopnoea) obstruction of airflow during sleep. The severity of OSAS is defined by the apnoea hypopnoea index (AHI) or number of obstructive episodes. An AHI greater than 30 is considered severe, but it can reach values higher than 100 in some patients. Associated to the OSA there is high incidence of cardiovascular and neuro-psychiatric pathologies including systemic hypertension, stroke, cardiac arrhythmias and atherosclerosis, diurnal somnolence, anxiety and depression. In the present study we have used a model of intermittent hypoxia (IH) of moderately high intensity (30 episodes/h) to evaluate arterial blood gases and plasma catecholamines as main effectors in determining arterial blood pressure. Male rats were exposed toIH with a regime of 80s, 20% O(2) // 40s, 10%O(2), 8 h/day, 8 or 15 days.Lowering the breathing atmosphere to 10% O(2) reduced arterial blood PO(2) to 56.9 mmHg (nadir HbO(2) 86, 3%). Plasma epinephrine (E) and norepinephrine (NE) levels at the end of 8 and 15 days of IH showed a tendency to increase, being significant the increase of norepinephrine (NE) levels in the group exposed to intermittent hypoxia during 15 days. We conclude that IH causes an increase in sympathetic activity and a concomitant increase in NE levels which in turn would generate an increase in vascular tone and arterial blood pressure.