Does heavy exercise alter cardiopulmonary physiological responses in patients with anemia compared to normal subjects?
In patients with anemia, maximal exercise is limited by decreased oxygen-carrying capacity rather than an inability to augment cardiac output, which reaches levels comparable to normal subjects.
The hemodynamic adaptation of the human body to acute and chronic anemia has been extensively studied. There are few reports, however, of in- vestigations of the response of anemic individuals to exercise. The most exhaustive study to date is that of Bishop, Donald and Wade (1), who evalu- ated 11 patients with anemia at moderate levels of exercise, performed in a supine position at minute ventilations up to 20 L.
Sproule et al. (Mon,) studied this question.