Supplemental oxygen improves endurance training in nonhypoxemic COPD

The outcomes of a recent study in patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) who exercised with supplemental oxygen experienced a remarkable more than twofold increase in peak work rate compared to those using compressed medical air. The key findings of this study were published in The American Journal of Medicine.

This randomized, double-blind, crossover trial focused on the impact of supplemental oxygen during exercise training for non-hypoxemic COPD patients. The outcomes of the study bears significance in the condition where physical exercise is a well-established treatment but other approaches to enhance its efficacy are continuously searched for.

The study included 29 non-hypoxemic COPD patients of average age of 60 years. The patients who underwent two consecutive 6-week periods of endurance and strength training for three times a week, with either supplemental oxygen or medical air. The sessions involved electrocardiography-controlled interval cycling and strength-training exercises. The study demonstrated a significant difference in peak work rate with an increase more than twice as high in the oxygen group (0.16 ± 0.02 W/kg vs. 0.07 ± 0.02 W/kg; P < .001) which were the primary endpoint. This positive impact extended to all secondary endpoints related to exercise capacity, marking a 39.1% overall training effect.

The findings suggest that supplemental oxygen in non-hypoxemic COPD patients increases the effect of endurance training. This finding holds positive outcomes that could revolutionize COPD management by providing a novel approach to improve exercise capacity of patients. While oxygen did not influence strength gain it showed profound outcomes that enhance the implications of overall exercise.

Source:

Neunhäuserer, D., Steidle-Kloc, E., Weiss, G., Kaiser, B., Niederseer, D., Hartl, S., Tschentscher, M., Egger, A., Schönfelder, M., Lamprecht, B., Studnicka, M., & Niebauer, J. (2016). Supplemental Oxygen During High-Intensity Exercise Training in Nonhypoxemic Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. In The American Journal of Medicine (Vol. 129, Issue 11, pp. 1185–1193). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2016.06.023