HYPERVENTILATION IN ARTERIOLAR HYPERTENSION

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Abstract
Hyperventilation (studied in 7 patients with essential hypertension and 3 normal subjects) produces a lowering of the blood pressure in some patients with essential hypertension. A significant drop does not regularly occur; there may even be a slight rise. There appears to be no direct and constant relationship between the height of the blood pressure in patients with essential arteriolar hypertension and the alveolar CO2 tension. It is suggested that the absence of a drop in blood pressure during hyperventilation when the alveolar CO2 content is kept normal by the use of a 3% CO2 mixture, is due to the balancing of a fall in blood pressure from the mechanical effects of deep breathing and a rise from the vaso-constricting effect of the 3% CO2. In those cases of essential hypertension in which lowering of the arterial CO2 tension by hyperventilation was accompanied by a definite drop in blood pressure, no undue sensitivity to CO2 existed.

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