Baseline values of cardiovascular and respiratory parameters predict response to acute hypoxia in young healthy men.

The majority of the available works have studied distinct hypoxic responses of respiratory and cardiovascular systems. This study examines how these systems interact while responding to hypoxia and whether baseline metrics moderate reactions to a hypoxic challenge. Central hemodynamic, aortic wave reflection, and gas exchange parameters were measured in 27 trained young men before and after 10-min normobaric isocapnic hypoxia (10 % O2). Associations were assessed by correlation and multiple regression analyses. Hypoxic changes in the parameters of pulse wave analysis such as augmentation index (-114 %, p=0.007), pulse pressure amplification (+6 %, p=0.020), time to aortic reflection wave (+21 %, p<0.001) report on the increase in arterial distensibility. Specifically, initially compliant arteries blunt the positive cardiac chronotropic response to hypoxia and facilitate the myocardial workload. The degree of blood oxygen desaturation is directly correlated with both baseline values and hypoxic responses of aortic and peripheral blood pressures. The hypoxia-induced gain in ventilation (VE), while controlling for basal VE and heart rate (HR), is inversely associated with deltaHR and deltasystolic blood pressure. The study suggests that cardiovascular and respiratory systems mutually supplement each other when responding to hypoxic challenge.

Active and passive reaction of large arterial vessels to sublingual test with nitroglycerin.

The noninvasive method of oscillovasometry, devised previously, was applied to the estimation of arterial pressure, effective radius of large arterial vessels, a number of indices showing elastic vessel properties and change in tone of the vessels on the right upper limb just before sublingual administration of nitroglycerin (0.5 mg) to the patients and 4-5 min after it. A group of 96 patients with different levels of arterial pressure were examined. It was found that all the patients showed a pressure decrease and tachycardia, but about a half of them had a passive response in large arterial vessels in the form of a decrease in the vessel volume, while others showed a decrease in arterial vessel tone (vasodilation), i.e. an active vascular response. From the data we drew the conclusion that there are two types of vascular response (active and passive) and they do not depend on the initial level of arterial pressure. Nitroglycerin probably acts more effectively on large arteries with a high initial tone. The possible mechanism of this phenomenon is discussed.