Effects of intermittent hypoxia in patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome

Intermittent hypoxia (IH) is defined as repeated hypoxic episodes interspersed with episodes of normoxia [Neubauer J 2001]. IH is considered as an affective stimulus evoking various respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic, and cellular reactions. When short episodes of hypoxia (seconds and minutes) are separated with the episodes of normoxia and the whole experiment is of a short duration the term acute IH can be used. When the episodes of alternating hypoxia and normoxia are repeated up to 12 hours per day for several days the term chronic IH is applied. It is commonly accepted that for the majority of the popul…