Age-related decline in peak oxygen uptake: Cross-sectional vs. longitudinal findings. A review

Cardiorespiratory fitness is established as an important prognostic factor for cardiovascular and general health. In clinical settings cardiorespiratory fitness is often measured by cardiopulmonary exercise testing determining the gold-standard peak oxygen uptake (VO_2peak). Due to the considerable impact of age and sex on VO_2peak, results from cardiopulmonary exercise testing are typically assessed in the context of age- and sex-specific reference values, and multiple studies have been conducted establishing reference materials by age and sex using cross-sectional designs. However, crossectional and longitudinal studies have shown somewhat conflicting results regarding age-related declines of VO_2peak, with larger declines reported in longitudinal studies. In this brief review, we compare findings from crossectional and longitudinal studies on age-related trajectories in VO_2peak to highlight differences in these estimates which should be acknowledged when clinicians interpret VO_2peak measurements repeated over time.