“…In addition to the obesity factor described above, numerous other factors Vol.32, No.4, 1982 Y. OHYABU, A. YOSHIDA, F. HAYASHI, N. SATO, and Y. HONDA have been reported to affect hypoxic sensitivity : altitude exposure (MILLEDGE and LAHIRI, 1967;WEIL et al, 1971a), athleticism (BYRNE-QUINN et al, 1971;MARTIN et al, 1978), hyperthermia (NATALINO, 1977), mixed venous PCO2, level (REBUCK and WOODLEY, 1975), malnutrition (DAEKEL, 1976), aging (KRONENBERG and DRAGE, 1973, familial or genetic factor (COLLINS et al, 1978 ;KAWAKAMI et al, 1981a ;KAWAKAMI et al, 1981b), congenital cyanotic heart disease (SORENSEN and SEVERINGHAUS, 1968 ;BLESA et al, 1977), various drugs, anesthesia or sedation (HIRSHMAN et al, 1975a ;HIRSHMAN et al, 1975b ;YACOUB et al, 1976;HIRSHMAN et al, 1977;KNILL and GELB, 1978;LAKSHMINARAYAN et al, 1978 ;SANDERS et al, 1980), and alveolar hypoventilation syndromes (SHANNON and KELLY, 1977 ;BRADLEY et al, 1979 ;SCHIFFMAN et al, 1980;BERMAN et al, 1981 ;HUNT et al, 1981). None of the above factors, however, seems to satisfactorily explain the results obtained in the present study.…”