Relationship of increased breath-holding diffusing capacity to ventilation in exercise

¹ Department of Medicine and Heart Research Center, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana

Pulmonary diffusing capacity (Dl), as measured by all techniques, increases with exercise possibly due to an increase in the volume of blood in pulmonary capillaries (Vc), but the mechanism for the latter is not known. Previous studies have indicated that the steady-state Dl can be increased by hyperventilation alone, enough possibly to account for the increase in Dl as measured by this method with exercise. On the other hand, breath-holding Dl is not increased by voluntary hyperventilation preceding the measurement. The present study was carried out to determine whether or not the increase in ventilation rate is a necessary part of a combination of factors which account for the rise in Dl during exercise. In this study breath-holding Dl was measured in five subjects. All of the five subjects studied had an increase in Dl during exercise when ventilation was voluntarily restrained to the resting level, and the mean increase was as great as the mean increase during the same amount of exercise with normal unrestricted breathing. The increase in Dl when breathing was restricted during exercise could not be accounted for by differences in alveolar volumes or by differences in alveolar O₂ and CO₂ tensions in the two situations. This study demonstrates that increase in ventilation preceding the measurement is not a determinant of the increase in breath-holding Dl with exercise