Professor Bengt Saltin Symposium - Environmental Challenges to Human Performance

This short review is from a presentation made at the Bengt Saltin Symposium, October 15-17, at the 2015 CSEP conference, Hamilton, Canada. The review provides context of the important work of the late Dr. Saltinâ s contributions to environmental physiology. In addition to well-controlled laboratory experiments to better understand the influence of hypoxia or temperature, or both, Dr. Saltin also led several field expeditions to the North Greenland, Kenya, Himalayas and the Andes, where he studied several aspects of human adaptation to environment. The 1998 Danish High-Altitude Expedition to the Andes, in particular, resulted in many major contributions to the field of altitude physiology including, but not limited to; mechanisms of reductions in maximal oxygen update; the lactate paradox; acclimatization; muscle metabolism; gas exchange, cerebrovascular physiology, etc. Of note, many of these related studies were conducted in both Danish sojourners to altitude and Bolivian altitude natives of Aymara ancestry, thus providing some of the most mechanistic comparisons with high altitude natives to date. A framework of these physiological contributions in terrestrial extremes is provided in this review.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author