The Oxygen Cascade During Exercise in Health and Disease

The oxygen transport cascade describes the physiological ‘steps’ that bring atmospheric oxygen into the body where it is delivered and consumed by metabolically active tissue. As such, the oxygen cascade is fundamental to our understanding of exercise in health and disease. Our narrative review will highlight each step of the oxygen transport cascade from inspiration of atmospheric oxygen down to mitochondrial consumption in both healthy active males and females along with clinical conditions. We will focus on how different ‘steps’ interact along with principles of homeostasis, physiological redundancies and adaptation. In particular we highlight some of the parallels between elite athletes and clinical conditions in terms of the oxygen cascade.