Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, dementia, depression and cancers, are on the rise worldwide and are often associated with a lack of physical activity (PA). Globally, the levels of PA among individuals are below WHO recommendations. A lack of PA can increase morbidity and mortality, worsen the quality of life and increase the economic burden on individuals and society. In response to this trend, numerous organisations came together under one umbrella in Hamburg, Germany, in April 2021 and signed the ‘Hamburg Declaration’. This represented an international commitment to take all necessary actions to increase PA and improve the health of individuals to entire communities. Individuals and organisations are working together as the ‘Global Alliance for the Promotion of Physical Activity’ to drive long-term individual and population-wide behaviour change by collaborating with all stakeholders in the community: active hospitals, physical activity specialists, community services and healthcare providers, all achieving sustainable health goals for their patients/clients. The ‘Hamburg Declaration’ calls on national and international policymakers to take concrete action to promote daily PA and exercise at a population level and in healthcare settings.

The current study aimed to determine whether acute hypoxia exposure in laboratory conditions associated with exercise induces an increase in systemic blood pressure (BP) in normotensive and hypertensive patients, and whether hypertensive patients are more prone to develop severe acute mountain sickness (sAMS). Finally, to determine if BP changes at exercise in acute hypoxia in hypertensive patients are predictive factors for sAMS. From 2012 to 2015, 852 normotensive and 106 hypertensive patients went through an acute hypoxia exercise test before a sojourn at high altitude. A subgroup of 228 normotensive was selected to match age, sex ratio, body weight and BMI and compared with the hypertensive group. In normotensive and hypertensive patients, for a given workload, BP was higher in hypoxia than in normoxia, whereas, for a given heart rate, it was lower in hypoxia than in normoxia. Hypertensive patients treated by beta-blockers showed lower arterial oxygen saturation (vs. other treatments) and blunted cardiac and ventilatory responses to hypoxia at exercise. Based on questionnaires filled out at high altitude, hypertensive patients were not more prone than normotensive patients to develop sAMS. During the laboratory acute hypoxic exercise test, hypertensive patients suffering from sAMS, although taking acetazolamide showed similar BP than hypertensive patients without sAMS and without acetazolamide. We hypothesize that acute hypoxia with exercise in laboratory conditions induces a peripheral vasodilation that balances vasoconstriction and tachycardia centrally induced through the adrenergic system. Hypertensive and normotensive patients behave similarly during exercise in acute hypoxia. Acute hypoxia does not exacerbate the exercise-induced increase in BP. BP variation, during the acute hypoxia exercise test, is not a useful predictor of intolerance to high altitude. Based on laboratory tests in acute hypoxia, hypertensive patients may not be at higher risk to develop sAMS at high altitude.

Periodic breathing is a respiratory phenomenon frequently observed in patients with heart failure and in normal subjects sleeping at high altitude. However, until recently, periodic breathing has not been studied in wakefulness and during exercise. This review relates the latest findings describing this ventilatory disorder when a healthy subject is submitted to simultaneous physiological (exercise) and environmental (hypoxia, hyperoxia, hypercapnia) or pharmacological (acetazolamide) stimuli. Preliminary studies have unveiled fundamental physiological mechanisms related to the genesis of periodic breathing characterized by a shorter period than those observed in patients (11~12 vs. 30~60 s). A mathematical model of the respiratory system functioning under the aforementioned stressors corroborated these data and pointed out other parameters, such as dead space, later confirmed in further research protocols. Finally, a cardiorespiratory interdependence between ventilatory oscillations and heart rate variability in the low frequency band may partly explain the origin of the augmented sympathetic activation at exercise in hypoxia. These nonlinear instabilities highlight the intrinsic “homeodynamic” system that allows any living organism to adapt, to a certain extent, to permanent environmental and internal perturbations.

We determined the energetic cost of sailing skills during racing‐cruising . The measurements are taken during four situations for two navigators practicing sailing regularly as professionals: hoist the mainsail, take reef and remove the one and go down lowering the jib sail. The values obtained during sailing skills were compared to the oxygen consumption during a treadmill test; and the gesture being done mostly by the arms, the VO2 was measured during a triangular test with an ergometer on the arm. The maximal oxygen consumptions are respectively on the treadmill and the arm ergometer for subject 1: 4.6 versus 4.2 l*min‐1 (91%) and for subject 2: 3.8 versus 3.5 l*min‐1 (92%). The arm VO2 is lower than the VO2max obtained on the treadmill. The arm work even at its maximum doesn't permit to express the whole oxygen utilization for both subjects. The gestures are realized on a racing‐cruising trimaran. The measures are made by indirect calorimetry, using a portable device (Cosmed) to measure the respiratory parameters. The duration of each skill permits to define these activities as endurance exercises (hoist the mainsail: 16 minutes, reefing: 6 minutes 30 seconds and 7 minutes, take and remove a ris: 4 minutes 45 seconds and 6 min, lower the jib sail: 5min30). During each gesture, a stable state was reached for the physiological parameters (VO2, VE, QR and FC). Different measures were taken (from 9 to 55) during this plateau allowing the calculation of average values. The VO2 mean (± standard deviation) are for hoist the mainsail 2.4 ±0.3 l*min‐1 (62.4% of the VO2max and 67.5% of the VO2arm), for take a ris 1.9 ± 0.25 l*min‐1 (41.6% and 45.6% respectively for subject 1 and 54.4% and 59.8% for subject 2), to remove the one 2.47 ± 0.11 l*min‐1 (54% and 59% for the subject 1 and 65.5 and 70.7 for subject 2) and for lower the jib sail 1.5 ± 0.1 l*min‐1 (38.9% and 43% respectively). The sailing specifics actions skills for racing‐cruising are endurance exercises realized by arm workouts. The training for contestants in this field has to be oriented toward these exercises looking to improve the VO2max during arm workout. That kind of training will permit to improve the quality of the gestures during competitions, with a decrease of the exhaustion and improvement of recovery. The values found can have their place in the compendium which lists human energy expenditure. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .