Chest
Original ResearchPulmonary PhysiologyReference Values for Cardiorespiratory Response and Fitness on the Treadmill in a 20- to 85-Year-Old Population
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
This study was part of a multicenter study involving nine regional test centers throughout Norway. The study was approved by the Regional Committee for Medical Ethics (REK Sør-Øst B, S-08046b), the Norwegian Social Science Data Services, and the Norwegian Tax Department. All subjects signed written informed consent forms before participating.
In 2008, 3,485 individuals underwent objective measurements of physical activity with the GT1M accelerometer (ActiGraph, LLC) and completed a questionnaire
Results
This study examined 904 predominantly Caucasian subjects. Eighteen were excluded because of poor health, and 127 did not meet the criteria for maximal effort. Thus, 394 men and 365 women successfully achieved the o2max (84%). The mean baseline characteristics are shown according to 10-year age cohorts in Table 1 (women) and Table 2 (men).
Table 3, Table 4 show the average cardiopulmonary variables measured at maximal exercise according to 10-year age cohorts for women and men, respectively.
Discussion
This national cohort study presents reference values for the interpretation of CPET derived from a randomly selected sample of 759 apparently healthy men and women aged 20 to 85 years. We have demonstrated that the o2max relative to body mass is about 25% higher in men than in women, the decline in o2max (8% per decade) had already started after the first age cohort (20-29 years) and was linear throughout all age cohorts, the women's emax was 66% that of the men and emax decreased with age
Conclusions
In summary, this is the first investigation to evaluate a large and well-described population including different maximal cardiorespiratory fitness variables for both men and women on a treadmill across all ages from 20 to 85 years. The statistical analysis focused on the relationship between age and the different physiologic variables used in a typical clinical setting. These results can be used as reference variables during CPET on a treadmill.
Acknowledgments
Author contributions: Ms Edvardsen is guarantor of the study and takes responsibility for the accuracy of the data.
Ms Edvardsen: contributed by actively planning the study; controlling the equipment and quality of the test procedures; collecting, analyzing, and interpreting the data; and drafting the manuscript.
Dr Hansen: contributed to the conception and design of the study, coordinated the data collection, analyzed the data, and reviewed the manuscript critically.
Dr Holme: contributed to the
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Funding/Support: This work was supported by the Norwegian Directorate of Health.