1549
Exp Physiol 99.12 (2014) pp 1549–1551
Introduction Introduction
Bengt Saltin MD DSci (1935–2014), a tribute
Editor’s note
Experimental Physiology
It was with great sadness that we learnt of the death of Professor Bengt Saltin who, in a research career spanning several decades, has made an outstanding contribution to the field of integrative physiological research. Earlier this year we had invited him, together with his longstanding colleague Stefan Mortensen, to submit a review article to Experimental Physiology, little realizing that we would receive this sad news so shortly after finally accepting their article for publication. In view of this, we have taken the unusual step of inviting two great friends and scientific colleagues of his, Jere Mitchell and Peter Raven, to write a tribute to him. We are grateful to them for undertaking this commission and we are delighted to publish their tribute together with his article. Paul McLoughlin
We are honoured that the Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Physiology, Paul McLouglin, invited us to remember our friend, Bengt Saltin, as a way of introduction to Bengt’s final published manuscript, written in collaboration with Stefan Mortensen, entitled ‘Regulation of the skeletal muscle blood flow in humans’ and published in this issue of Experimental Physiology (Mortensen & Saltin, 2014). On Friday 12 September 2014, we lost one of the truly great giants in the field of intergrative biology of exercise. After receiving his medical degree and doctoral training at the Karolinska in Stockholm, Bengt decided that he had a greater passion for studying how the human body works than for taking care of patients. Bengt’s early mentors were Erik Hohw¨u-Christensen, who was ˚ his father figure and role model, and Per-Ol¨of Astrand, his DSci advisor. His thesis work was conducted on humans and their remarkable capacity to adjust the circulatory and respiratory systems to high-intensity dynamic exercise. His entire research career was devoted to human C 2014 The Authors. Experimental Physiology C 2014 The Physiological Society
DOI: 10.1113/expphysiol.2014.083998
Downloaded from Exp Physiol (ep.physoc.org) at California Digital Library on December 2, 2014
1550
Introduction
Exp Physiol 99.12 (2014) pp 1549–1551
studies at the level of the whole body, organ systems, tissues and cells. Bengt believed in the statement of Alexander Pope (1688–1744) that ‘the proper study of mankind is man’. However, he fully understood the importance of animal studies and would apply their findings to his own work. Early in his professional career, he focused on investigating the effects of exercise on health and performance. He was especially focused on the integration of the cardiovascular system and skeletal muscle function related to maximal oxygen uptake and how the genetic phenotype was modified by physical training. Dr Saltin published over 450 original scientific articles in high-impact-factor journals and 150 book chapters or reviews. He also edited several textbooks in physiology for medical and postgraduate students. His range of interest in the integrative biology of exercise included the following: (i) oxygen transport system; (ii) muscle metabolism, using the biopsy technique of Bergstr¨om and Hultman; (iii) control of muscle blood flow during exercise, using the one-leg kicking model that he developed, while simultaneously incorporating microdialysis technology to study metabolite, solute and ion exchange between blood vessels and exercising muscle fibres; and (iv) neural control of the circulation during exercise. He made seminal contributions in each of these areas. In his muscle metabolism studies, he showed the importance of the percentage of red muscle fibres and glycogen stores for endurance performance. Bengt probably performed more muscle biopsies than any other person in history and certainly had more performed on himself than any other human. He also identified that exercising muscle blood flow could increase 100-fold from resting values and reached rates of 300–400 ml·min−1 ·kg−1 . This was a much higher value than had previously been reported. One of the more famous and clinical impactful studies was the classic ‘Dallas Bed Rest and Training Study’ performed at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 1966, which resulted in the publication of a monograph in Circulation in 1968. In this study of maximal oxygen uptake, the results identified that the phenotype could change from 31.8 to 51.1 ml·min−1 ·kg−1 (61% change) when going from inactivity (bed rest) to high physical activity (boot-camp-type training) with the same genotype. The findings of this study changed medical practice on how people recover from general surgery and/or injury, by introducing early ambulation. In addition, the findings spurred the development of programmes in early ambulation and rehabilitation after patients had suffered an acute myocardial infarction. Bengt was a citizen of Scandanavia and worked seamlessly between Sweden and Denmark. The Scandinavian language he spoke was Swedish, but he was pleased to listen in Danish. If we had understood Swedish, he would probably have spoken to us in that language and then been happy to listen in English! Over the years, he held important academic positions in both countries. He was appointed to serve as the Director of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Center (CMRC) from 1993 to 2005 and, during that time, developed numerous affiliations between international governing bodies of sports and universities throughout the world. Dr Saltin mentored many of the current leaders in the field of the integrative biology of exercise. He and colleagues in Copenhagen continued to work on expanding the knowledge about the biology of muscle, the role of exercise in combating type II diabetes and vascular function up to the time of his death. Indeed, the article that we are introducing (Mortensen & Saltin, 2014) provides a review of his current thoughts on the signalling role of ATP. Bengt loved sports and exercise (orienteering, running, biking, skiing and tennis) and the outdoors. He would run through the Tisvilde Hegn, stopping to collect edible mushrooms, which he would cook that evening. (One would always watch him eat them first!) However, Bengt studied the integrative biology of exercise for its own sake (testing hypotheses) and not for how his findings would enhance one’s performance in sports. He was pleased when his research finding had a useful application, but that was not the reason he was doing the studies. He was a pure and true scientist. Bengt Saltin was a research colleague, mentor, councilor and friend to many. He was a great inspiration both to young investigators who only met him once and to many of us who spent years (50 for J.H.M.) working with him. Even though Bengt had strong convictions, he was frequently able to see your side of the story, but he was rarely convinced to change his mind. In 2002, he was awarded the IOC Prize, an Olympic Gold Medal, for having made the greatest contribution to our understanding of exercise for health and performance. He was awarded C 2014 The Authors. Experimental Physiology C 2014 The Physiological Society
Downloaded from Exp Physiol (ep.physoc.org) at California Digital Library on December 2, 2014
Exp Physiol 99.12 (2014) pp 1549–1551
Introduction
1551
an American College of Sports Medicine Citation Award in 1980 and an Honor Award in 1990. The field of integrative biology of exercise has lost a visionary scientist, a mentor and friend to many of us and a wonderful human being. He will be sorely missed and will never be replaced.
Jere H. Mitchell and Peter B. Raven Corresponding author P. B. Raven: University of North Texas Health Science Center, Integrative Physiology, Fort Worth, Department of Integrative Physiology, 3500 Camp Bowie Boulevard, TX 761017-2699, USA. Email: [email protected] Reference Mortensen SP & Saltin B (2014). Regulation of the skeletal muscle blood flow in humans. Exp Physiol 99, 1552–1558.
C 2014 The Authors. Experimental Physiology C 2014 The Physiological Society
Downloaded from Exp Physiol (ep.physoc.org) at California Digital Library on December 2, 2014
Exp Physiol 99.12 (2014) pp 1549–1551
Introduction Introduction
Bengt Saltin MD DSci (1935–2014), a tribute
Editor’s note
Experimental Physiology
It was with great sadness that we learnt of the death of Professor Bengt Saltin who, in a research career spanning several decades, has made an outstanding contribution to the field of integrative physiological research. Earlier this year we had invited him, together with his longstanding colleague Stefan Mortensen, to submit a review article to Experimental Physiology, little realizing that we would receive this sad news so shortly after finally accepting their article for publication. In view of this, we have taken the unusual step of inviting two great friends and scientific colleagues of his, Jere Mitchell and Peter Raven, to write a tribute to him. We are grateful to them for undertaking this commission and we are delighted to publish their tribute together with his article. Paul McLoughlin
We are honoured that the Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Physiology, Paul McLouglin, invited us to remember our friend, Bengt Saltin, as a way of introduction to Bengt’s final published manuscript, written in collaboration with Stefan Mortensen, entitled ‘Regulation of the skeletal muscle blood flow in humans’ and published in this issue of Experimental Physiology (Mortensen & Saltin, 2014). On Friday 12 September 2014, we lost one of the truly great giants in the field of intergrative biology of exercise. After receiving his medical degree and doctoral training at the Karolinska in Stockholm, Bengt decided that he had a greater passion for studying how the human body works than for taking care of patients. Bengt’s early mentors were Erik Hohw¨u-Christensen, who was ˚ his father figure and role model, and Per-Ol¨of Astrand, his DSci advisor. His thesis work was conducted on humans and their remarkable capacity to adjust the circulatory and respiratory systems to high-intensity dynamic exercise. His entire research career was devoted to human C 2014 The Authors. Experimental Physiology C 2014 The Physiological Society
DOI: 10.1113/expphysiol.2014.083998
Downloaded from Exp Physiol (ep.physoc.org) at California Digital Library on December 2, 2014
1550
Introduction
Exp Physiol 99.12 (2014) pp 1549–1551
studies at the level of the whole body, organ systems, tissues and cells. Bengt believed in the statement of Alexander Pope (1688–1744) that ‘the proper study of mankind is man’. However, he fully understood the importance of animal studies and would apply their findings to his own work. Early in his professional career, he focused on investigating the effects of exercise on health and performance. He was especially focused on the integration of the cardiovascular system and skeletal muscle function related to maximal oxygen uptake and how the genetic phenotype was modified by physical training. Dr Saltin published over 450 original scientific articles in high-impact-factor journals and 150 book chapters or reviews. He also edited several textbooks in physiology for medical and postgraduate students. His range of interest in the integrative biology of exercise included the following: (i) oxygen transport system; (ii) muscle metabolism, using the biopsy technique of Bergstr¨om and Hultman; (iii) control of muscle blood flow during exercise, using the one-leg kicking model that he developed, while simultaneously incorporating microdialysis technology to study metabolite, solute and ion exchange between blood vessels and exercising muscle fibres; and (iv) neural control of the circulation during exercise. He made seminal contributions in each of these areas. In his muscle metabolism studies, he showed the importance of the percentage of red muscle fibres and glycogen stores for endurance performance. Bengt probably performed more muscle biopsies than any other person in history and certainly had more performed on himself than any other human. He also identified that exercising muscle blood flow could increase 100-fold from resting values and reached rates of 300–400 ml·min−1 ·kg−1 . This was a much higher value than had previously been reported. One of the more famous and clinical impactful studies was the classic ‘Dallas Bed Rest and Training Study’ performed at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 1966, which resulted in the publication of a monograph in Circulation in 1968. In this study of maximal oxygen uptake, the results identified that the phenotype could change from 31.8 to 51.1 ml·min−1 ·kg−1 (61% change) when going from inactivity (bed rest) to high physical activity (boot-camp-type training) with the same genotype. The findings of this study changed medical practice on how people recover from general surgery and/or injury, by introducing early ambulation. In addition, the findings spurred the development of programmes in early ambulation and rehabilitation after patients had suffered an acute myocardial infarction. Bengt was a citizen of Scandanavia and worked seamlessly between Sweden and Denmark. The Scandinavian language he spoke was Swedish, but he was pleased to listen in Danish. If we had understood Swedish, he would probably have spoken to us in that language and then been happy to listen in English! Over the years, he held important academic positions in both countries. He was appointed to serve as the Director of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Center (CMRC) from 1993 to 2005 and, during that time, developed numerous affiliations between international governing bodies of sports and universities throughout the world. Dr Saltin mentored many of the current leaders in the field of the integrative biology of exercise. He and colleagues in Copenhagen continued to work on expanding the knowledge about the biology of muscle, the role of exercise in combating type II diabetes and vascular function up to the time of his death. Indeed, the article that we are introducing (Mortensen & Saltin, 2014) provides a review of his current thoughts on the signalling role of ATP. Bengt loved sports and exercise (orienteering, running, biking, skiing and tennis) and the outdoors. He would run through the Tisvilde Hegn, stopping to collect edible mushrooms, which he would cook that evening. (One would always watch him eat them first!) However, Bengt studied the integrative biology of exercise for its own sake (testing hypotheses) and not for how his findings would enhance one’s performance in sports. He was pleased when his research finding had a useful application, but that was not the reason he was doing the studies. He was a pure and true scientist. Bengt Saltin was a research colleague, mentor, councilor and friend to many. He was a great inspiration both to young investigators who only met him once and to many of us who spent years (50 for J.H.M.) working with him. Even though Bengt had strong convictions, he was frequently able to see your side of the story, but he was rarely convinced to change his mind. In 2002, he was awarded the IOC Prize, an Olympic Gold Medal, for having made the greatest contribution to our understanding of exercise for health and performance. He was awarded C 2014 The Authors. Experimental Physiology C 2014 The Physiological Society
Downloaded from Exp Physiol (ep.physoc.org) at California Digital Library on December 2, 2014
Exp Physiol 99.12 (2014) pp 1549–1551
Introduction
1551
an American College of Sports Medicine Citation Award in 1980 and an Honor Award in 1990. The field of integrative biology of exercise has lost a visionary scientist, a mentor and friend to many of us and a wonderful human being. He will be sorely missed and will never be replaced.
Jere H. Mitchell and Peter B. Raven Corresponding author P. B. Raven: University of North Texas Health Science Center, Integrative Physiology, Fort Worth, Department of Integrative Physiology, 3500 Camp Bowie Boulevard, TX 761017-2699, USA. Email: [email protected] Reference Mortensen SP & Saltin B (2014). Regulation of the skeletal muscle blood flow in humans. Exp Physiol 99, 1552–1558.
C 2014 The Authors. Experimental Physiology C 2014 The Physiological Society
Downloaded from Exp Physiol (ep.physoc.org) at California Digital Library on December 2, 2014
