Student or educator? Sign up with your school email and get 6 months of Pro free.
Cited by 19Cardiovascular and exercise physiologyExercise and Physiological ResponsesAir Quality and Health Impacts

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 44 of the 44 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 58 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Carbon monoxide exposure during exercise performance: muscle and cerebral oxygenation

Open access
Keramidas, M. E., Kounalakis, S. N., Eiken, O., Mekjavic, I. B.·2012·Acta Physiologica

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the effect of carbon monoxide (CO) in the inspired air as anticipated during peak hours of traffic in polluted megalopolises on cerebral, respiratory and leg muscle oxygenation during a constant‐power test (CPT). In addition, since O 2 breathing is used to hasten elimination of CO from the blood, we examined the effect of breathing O 2 following exposure to CO on cerebral and muscle oxygenation during a subsequent exercise test under CO conditions. Methods: Nine men participated in three trials: (i) 3‐h air exposure followed by a control CPT, (ii) 1‐h air and 2‐h CO (18.9 ppm) exposure succeeded by a CPT under CO conditions (CPT COA), and (iii) 2‐h CO and 1‐h 100% normobaric O 2 exposure followed by a CPT under CO conditions (CPT COB). All exercise tests were performed at 85% of peak power output to exhaustion. Oxygenated (Δ[O 2 Hb]), deoxygenated (Δ[HHb]) and total (Δ[tHb]) haemoglobin in cerebral, intercostal and vastus lateralis muscles were monitored with near‐infrared spectroscopy throughout the CPTs. Results: Performance time did not vary between trials. However, the vastus lateralis and intercostal Δ[O 2 Hb] and Δ[tHb] were lower in CPT COA than in CPT. During the CPT COB, the intercostal Δ[O 2 Hb] and Δ[tHb] were higher than in the CPT COA. There were no differences in cerebral oxygenation between the trials. Conclusion: Inspiration of 18.9 ppm CO decreases oxygenation in the vastus lateralis and serratus anterior muscles, but does not affect performance. Breathing normobaric O 2 moderates the CO‐induced reductions in muscle oxygenation, mainly in the intercostals, but does not affect endurance.

Overview

CoChat Summary

TL;DR

In nine healthy men, breathing 18.9 ppm CO during constant-power cycling reduced vastus lateralis and serratus anterior oxygenation but did not change exercise performance time. Pre-exposure to normobaric O₂ moderated the CO-induced muscle deoxygenation, mainly in the intercostals, without improving endurance.

Key findings

  • Performance time did not differ between control CPT (6:51 ± 1:28 min), CPT under CO (6:41 ± 1:39 min), and CPT under CO preceded by O₂ (6:52 ± 2:05 min; P > 0.05).
  • Vastus lateralis Δ[O₂Hb] was lower in CPT CO_B (~25%) and CPT CO_A (~30%) than in CPT from 20% and 40% of performance time, respectively, until the end (P ≤ 0.05).
  • Serratus anterior Δ[O₂Hb] fell more in CPT CO_A than in CPT and CPT CO_B at 60, 80, and 100% of performance time (P ≤ 0.05); Δ[tHb] was reduced in CPT CO_A vs CPT at 60 and 100%, and vs CPT CO_B at 100%.
  • Cerebral oxygenation did not differ between trials, although cerebral Δ[HHb] was lower in both CO trials than in CPT (~42%) at peak exercise intensity (P ≤ 0.05). Blood lactate at termination was higher in CPT CO_A (13.5 ± 1.6 mM) than in CPT (12.8 ± 1.3 mM) and CPT CO_B (12.2 ± 1.3 mM; P < 0.001).

Methods

  • Nine healthy, recreationally active non-smoking men (age 23.6 ± 3.0 years; VO₂max 51.3 ± 2.2 mL kg⁻¹ min⁻¹; PPO 357 ± 29 W) completed three counter-balanced trials separated by ≥48 h: 3-h air + control CPT; 1-h air + 2-h CO (18.9 ppm) + CPT under CO; and 2-h CO + 1-h 100% normobaric O₂ + CPT under CO.
  • Exercise tests were constant-power cycle-ergometry at 85% PPO (mean 303 ± 24 W) to exhaustion. Near-infrared spectroscopy monitored Δ[O₂Hb], Δ[HHb], and Δ[tHb] in left prefrontal cortex, serratus anterior/intercostal region, and vastus lateralis.
  • Analyses used one-way and two-way repeated-measures ANOVA with Tukey post hoc tests, plus Friedman and Wilcoxon tests for perceptual ratings; alpha was 0.05.

Limitations

  • The paper states that NIRS cannot separate Hb and myoglobin contributions, subcutaneous adipose thickness may influence the signal, and NIRS reflects regional rather than global oxygenation.
  • The paper notes that COHb was not recorded, so the presumed COHb threshold explanation is inferential.
  • Evident from the text: the sample was small (nine men), participants were recreationally active but not formally trained, and the study examined a single pollutant rather than the pollutant mixture encountered in real urban environments.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/j.1748-1716.2011.02363.x

Cites

44 of 44 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 Valid · 0 Not valid · 38 Not checked · 57 Own results and interpretations

52 more claims

Create a free account to see all 95 claims and to verify the 41 references still open.

See all claims — free account
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 16
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 21
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 4

Create a free account to see these claims.

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

1 of 1

Citations

Cites

Show all 44 references

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. AEA & Defra, 2010, Air Pollution in the UK 2009
  2. McCully K.K., 2000, Near‐infrared spectroscopy: what can it tell us about oxygen saturation in skeletal muscle?, Exerc Sport Sci Rev, 28, 123

Cited by

See all 19

Metadata

Authors
Keramidas, M. E., Kounalakis, S. N., Eiken, O., & Mekjavic, I. B.
Affiliations
  • Jožef Stefan Institute (SI)
  • Hellenic Military Academy (GR)
  • KTH Royal Institute of Technology (SE)
Corresponding author
Keramidas, M. E.
Venue
Acta Physiologica
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2011-10-31
Volume
204
Issue
4
Pages
544-554
ISSN
  • 1748-1708 (ISSN-L)
  • 1748-1716
OpenAlex
W1858286946
Cited by
19
References
44
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 4 · 2017: 3 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 1
FWCI
0.65
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Acta Physiologica (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology (medical) › Cardiovascular and exercise physiology
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology (medical) › Exercise and Physiological Responses
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Air Quality and Health Impacts
Keywords
carbon monoxide exposure, exercise performance, muscle oxygenation, cerebral oxygenation, hemoglobin oxygenation, vastus lateralis, intercostal muscles, endurance, air pollution, traffic-related air pollution
MeSH terms
Air Pollutants, Air Pollution, Brain, Carbon Monoxide, Humans, Male, Oxygen, Respiratory Physiological Phenomena, Exercise, Muscle, Skeletal, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-11-13, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).

A second model labelled each claim on 2026-11-13 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.