This book provides a comprehensive, updated presentation of the information that can be gained by cardiopulmonary exercise testing to assess the health of the cardiovascular system as a whole, and its individual components. It heralds a new era in which the instrumentation provides accurate measurements and the functions of the heart, pulmonary, and peripheral circulations and the lungs can be described quantitatively in graphical form. This enables the physician and investigator to measure the degree of success with which the cardiovascular system supports the O2 supply for the energy-generating mechanisms needed to sustain life.