Effects of Sleep Apnea Syndrome on the Systemic Blood Pressure

Lee, Hee Sang; Lee, Sung Hoon; Namkoong, Kee; Han, Seung Jin; Bang, Seung Kyun

Abstract

OBJECTS: This study was conducted to investigate the effects of sleep apnea syndromes on the systemic blood pressure.
METHODS
The subjects were 140 patients who were consulted to Yon-jung brain auction and sleep research center for polysomnography due to snoring and sleep apnea from Jan. 1st 1995 to Oct. 31st 1995. Twenty-four out of 140 were excluded due to cardiovascular diseases other than systemic hypertension, antihypertensive medication, inadequate data or diagnosis other than sleep apnea syndrome. The remaining 116 were accepted as proper subjects. Using Pearson's correlation and multiple regression analysis, we looked for the relationship between sleep and respiratory variables to systemic blood pressure.
RESULTS
The results were as follows : 1) According to the correlation analysis, statistically significant variables to mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure were the total time and total number of sleep apnea, degree of oxygen saturation of total sleep time, apnea index, total time and total number of central apnea, and the total time of obstructive apnea. 2) According to the multiple regression analysis, only the total time of sleep apnea significantly affected mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and the degrees of affection were 7.9% and 6.2% respectively.
CONCLUSION
These findings showed that sleep apnea syndrome had lower influence over systemic blood pressure than expected and regardless of the type, only the total time of sleep apnea influenced systemic blood pressure. In the case of central apnea, mechanisms other than hypoxemia and the increase of sympathetic activity during arousal may make it possible to increase systemic blood pressure.