Obesity Blunts the Ventilatory Response to Exercise in Men and Women.

Obesity presents a mechanical load to the thorax, which could perturb the generation of minute ventilation (V̇e) during exercise. Because the respiratory effects of obesity are not homogenous among all individuals with obesity and obesity-related effects could vary depending on the magnitude of obesity, we hypothesized that the exercise ventilatory response (slope of the V̇e and carbon dioxide elimination [V̇co] relationship) would manifest itself differently as the magnitude of obesity increases. To investigate the V̇e/V̇co slope in an obese population that spanned across a wide body mass index (BMI) range.