The purpose of this study is to present measurement of ventilatory threshold (VeT) and maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) in a large group of predominantly older subjects using a bicycle ergometer and an automated measuring system. One hundred and twenty-seven healthy elderly subjects (mean age: 68) and 44 young and middle-aged subjects (mean age: 39) underwent a maximal exercise test with breath-by-breath measurement of ventilation and gas exchange variables. Ventilatory threshold was determined by visual inspection of the breakpoints in the VE/VO2 and PETO2 data curves. Additional measures were made in a subset of subjects to determine the reproducibility and interobserver variability of VeT and the relationship between VeT and the venous lactate threshold (LaT). Day-to-day reproducibility of VeT was good with a mean difference in VO2 at VeT on two occasions of 40.23 +/- 125 ml/min. Interobserver variability was low (intraclass correlation coefficient of r = 0.941) and VeT was found to correlate to LaT (r = 0.79, P less than 0.05) with LaT occurring a mean 2.3 min after VeT. VeT declined significantly with age in both males and females but less rapidly than VO2max. Both VO2max and VeT were found to vary with age, sex, height, and weight in a stepwise multiple-linear regression analysis. Age-associated changes in skeletal muscle composition may be in part responsible for the less precipitous decline in VeT with age compared with VO2max.

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