Effect of short-term sleep loss on breathing

Loss of sleep is common among patients with respiratory disorders. We studied ventilatory performance in 15 normal subjects to determine whether a single night of sleep loss would have any detectable effect on breathing. Spirometry and hypercapnic ventilatory response testing were performed daily for 3 consecutive days with no sleep permitted between testing on days 1 and 2. We found a small but significant decline in forced vital capacity and maximal voluntary ventilation and a 20% decrease in hypercapnic ventilatory response slope after sleep loss (P less than 0.05). We conclude that sleep loss results in a significant deterioration in ventilatory performance, which may be clinically important to patients with respiratory diseases.