Sleep apnea in obese miniature pigs

1 Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, University of Virginia Medical Center, Charlottesville 22908; 2 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk 23507; 3 Division of Endocrinology, Hampton Veterans Affairs Hospital, Hampton, Virginia 23667 Lonergan, Robert P., III, J. Catsby Ware, Richard L. Atkinson, W. Christopher Winter, and Paul M. Suratt. Sleep apnea in obese miniature pigs. J. Appl. Physiol. 84(2): 531-536, 1998. We postulated that three extremely obese Yucatan miniature pigs would have more sleep apnea than three nonobese Yucatan miniature pigs. Pigs were studied with the use of electroencephalograms, inductance plethysmography, oximetry, expired nasal CO 2 , or thermistors. All of the obese pigs, but none of the nonobese pigs, had both sleep apnea (8.5, 10.3, and 97.0 in obese pigs vs. 0 apnea + hypopnea/h in all nonobese pigs; P