Effect of verapamil on ventilatory and circulatory responses to hypoxia and hypercapnia in normal subjects

Recent investigations have shown that the calcium channel blocker verapamil attenuated the hypoxic ventilatory chemosensitivity of carotid body in animals. To determine whether this is also the case in humans, transient physiological chemodenervation by O2 breaths (withdrawal test) during sustained hypoxia (N = 7), and ventilatory and circulatory responses to progressive hypoxia and hypercapnia (N = 8) were examined after oral administration of verapamil. During sustained hypoxia after verpamil, there was a significant reduction of withdrawal response from 5th to 25th min value (p < 0.01), but not after placebo. On the other hand, no significant difference in ventilatory responses to progressive hypoxia and hypercapnia was observed after verapamil. Verapamil run reveals similar features with placebo run in circulatory parameters except blood pressure response, which tended to be suppressed by verapamil. We conclude that verapamil attenuates peripheral chemoreceptor activity with time during sustained mild hypoxia in normal adult humans and this may be explained by delayed depletion in intracellular Ca2+ for chemotransduction of the peripheral chemoreceptors.