Diversity in and adaptation to breath-hold diving in humans

Ferretti, Guido; Costa, M.

doi:10.1016/s1095-6433(03)00134-x

Cited by 65 publications

(49 citation statements)

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“…The occurrence of reversible adaptive phenomena in breath-hold diving populations was demonstrated e.g. in Ama, who lost adaptation to cold when they started using wet suits [5]. Yet Ama did not show increased lung volumes despite their long-lasting diving activity [18,19], and it is a common notion in exercise physiology that lung volumes cannot be trained [20].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lung volumes of extreme breath-hold divers

Ferretti

Costa

Moroni³

et al. 2012

Sport Sci Health

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Achievements in breath-hold diving depend, amongst others, on body oxygen stores at start of dive. A diver with very high lung volumes could increase dive's duration, and attain deeper depths for a given speed. Thus, we hypothesized that extreme breath-hold divers have very high lung volumes. On eight extreme breathhold divers (age 35 + 4 years, height 179 + 7 cm, body mass 76 + 6 kg) and 9 non-diving controls (age 37 + 6 years, height 177 + 4 cm, body mass 81 + 9 kg) residual volume, vital capacity and total lung capacity (TLC) were measured with a body plethysmograph. Forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV 1 ) were measured with a spirometer. Peak expiratory flow and flow-volume loops were measured with a pneumotachograph. In divers, but not in controls, volumes and capacities were systematically and significantly (p<0.01, paired t-test) higher than predicted from their body size. Consistently, volumes and capacities were significantly higher in divers than in controls, except for residual volume. Divers' TLC was 22% higher than predicted, and 21% higher than in controls. All divers' TLC was higher than 8 L, two had it higher than 9 L. FVC and FEV 1 were significantly higher in divers than in controls. The FEV 1 /FVC ratio was the same in both groups. We conclude that extreme breath-hold divers may constitute a niche population with physiological characteristics different from those of normal individuals, facilitating the achievement of excellent diving performances.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It consists of extreme peripheral vasoconstriction, hypertension, bradycardia and reduced cardiac output. The resulting circulatory cut-off in peripheral tissues, mostly muscles, forces them to rely on anaerobic lactic metabolism, thus reducingĖO 2 for any given overall rate of energy expenditure [4,5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lung volumes of extreme breath-hold divers

Ferretti

Costa

Moroni³

et al. 2012

Sport Sci Health

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“…These variations in turn imply that predictive risks cannot be ascertained (Ferretti & Costa, 2003). What is certain is that presubmersion hyperventilation carries definite risks although their quantification remains unknown at present.…”

Section: Pathophysiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Hypoxic Blackout: Diagnosis, Risks, and Prevention

Pearn¹,

Franklin²,

Peden³

2015

IJARE

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“…Several authors have also reported a blunted hypercapnic ventilatory response in various groups of breath-hold divers, such as submarine escape training instructors (Schaefer 1965), Ama divers (Song et al 1963;Masuda et al 1982), underwater hockey players (Davis et al 1987;Lemaître et al 2007), and trained breath-hold divers (Grassi et al 1994;Delapille et al 2001). Contradictory results regarding the hypoxic ventilatory response have been reported (Ferretti and Costa 2003). Training breath-hold diving, with frequent exposures to hypercapnia, may displace the threshold and reduce the sensitivity of the central chemoreceptors, thereby reducing the urge to breathe (Ferretti and Costa 2003), which may partly explain the prolonged breathholding times of trained divers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Long-term training of breath-hold diving or apnea is associated with several physiological adaptations, e.g., trained breath-hold divers have longer breath-holding times, a more pronounced diving response, and larger vital capacities than untrained control subjects (Carey et al 1956;Schaefer 1965;Schagatay and Andersson 1998;Ferretti and Costa 2003). Several authors have also reported a blunted hypercapnic ventilatory response in various groups of breath-hold divers, such as submarine escape training instructors (Schaefer 1965), Ama divers (Song et al 1963;Masuda et al 1982), underwater hockey players (Davis et al 1987;Lemaître et al 2007), and trained breath-hold divers (Grassi et al 1994;Delapille et al 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Repeated apneas do not affect the hypercapnic ventilatory response in the short term

Andersson

Schagatay

2008

Eur J Appl Physiol

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Long-term training of breath-hold diving reduces the hypercapnic ventilatory response (HCVR), an index of the CO(2) sensitivity. The aim of the present study was to elucidate whether also short-term apnea training (repeating apneas with short intervals) reduces the HCVR, thereby being one contributing factor explaining the progressively increasing breath-holding time (BHT) with repetition of apneas. Fourteen healthy volunteers performed a series of five maximal-duration apneas with face immersion and two measurements of the HCVR, using the Read rebreathing method. The BHT increased by 43% during the series of apneas (P < 0.001). However, the slope of the HCVR test was not affected by the series of apneas, being 2.52 (SD 1.27) and 2.24 (SD 1.14) l min(-1) mmHg(-1) in the control test and in the test performed within 2 min after the last apnea of the series, respectively (NS). Thus, a change in the HCVR cannot explain the observed short-term training effect on BHT.

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Diversity in and adaptation to breath-hold diving in humans

Cited by 65 publications

References 50 publications

Lung volumes of extreme breath-hold divers

Lung volumes of extreme breath-hold divers

Hypoxic Blackout: Diagnosis, Risks, and Prevention

Repeated apneas do not affect the hypercapnic ventilatory response in the short term

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