An altitude tent is one way to enable athletes living at any elevation to sleep in a high altitude-like environment.
To cause a physiological response, the altitude must be sufficient to reduce blood oxygen saturation (sometimes measured by a pulse oximeter) to approximately 90%.
Larger tents are of a cube shape, often tall enough to stand up in, and set up on the floor with the entire bed, and often a nightstand or two, placed inside.
Because of the use of plastic panels to reduce exchange with the room, heat and humidity can build up in an altitude tent.
In recent years, advances in altitude tent design, and in the performance of the hypoxic air-supply units, have all resulted in greater air-exchange and significantly lower noise levels.
[citation needed] The ethics of the use of these devices by athletes has been discussed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which claimed that it could be equivalent to blood doping and therefore they should be banned; however, on September 16, 2006, Dick Pound of the WADA announced that "…the overwhelming consensus of our health, medicine and research committees – was that, at this time, it is not appropriate to do so.