Medicine and science in sports and exercise
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Med Sci Sports Exerc · Jan 2019
O2 Pulse Patterns in Male Master Athletes with Normal and Abnormal Exercise Tests.
The clinical relevance of abnormal exercise testing (ET) results (at least 0.1 mV ST segment depression measured during exercise or recovery in three consecutive beats) in athletes without obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) is not well understood. It is unknown whether this phenomenon reflects a physiological adaptation to sport or a truly ischemic response and a concomitant attenuated stroke volume (SV) response. The aim of this study was to investigate if athletes with abnormal ET results without obstructive CAD showed signs of an attenuated SV response using cardiopulmonary ET parameters. ⋯ Athletes with abnormal ET results without obstructive CAD showed an attenuated O2 pulse slope, decreased ΔV˙O2/ΔWR ratio, and increased ΔHR/ΔWR ratio beyond anaerobic threshold when compared with athletes with a normal ET result. These results support the hypothesis that at least a part of the athletes with an abnormal ET in absence of obstructive CAD have an attenuated SV response at high-intensity exercise.