Nepal, the home of the highest mountain peaks, is one of the most popular trekking destinations in the world. The Himalaya begins where other mountain ranges leave off. Local farmers have cut small terrace fields on the slopes of colossal gorges which have been carved out by large glacial fed rivers. Everest Base Camp located at an altitude of 5,360 metres (17,590 ft) is 1,000 meters higher tha...

BACKGROUND COPD prevalence is highly variable and geographical altitude has been linked to it, yet with conflicting results. We aimed to investigate this association, considering well known risk factors. METHODS A pooled analysis of individual data from the PREPOCOL-PLATINO-BOLD-EPI-SCAN studies was used to disentangle the population effect of geographical altitude on COPD prevalence. Post-br...

Acute altitude illnesses are potentially serious conditions that can affect otherwise fit individuals who ascend too rapidly to altitude. They include high altitude headache, acute mountain sickness, high altitude cerebral oedema, and high altitude pulmonary oedema. The number of people travelling to altitude for work (soldiers, miners, construction workers, and astronomers) or for recreation (...

Hypoxia inducible factors, including HIF1A and HIF2A, play central roles in response to high-altitude hypoxia and genetic variants of HIF1A or HIF2A were associated with high-altitude sickness or adaptation. However, it remains to determine whether they are associated with tolerance to different levels of high-altitude selection pressure among native Tibetans. We recruited 189 Tibetan subjects ...

Effects of high altitude hypoxia on systolic time intervals were examined in 34 healthy men: 20 sea level residents studied at rest and at the end of 3 minutes steady isometric (handgrip) exercise at sea level and then serially for the first 5 days and on the tenth day, at an altitude of 3658 m, and I4 permanent residents at high altitude studied at high altitude. In the sea level residents the...

CONTEXT Sports and other activities at high altitude are popular, yet they pose the unique risk for high-altitude illness (HAI). Once those who have suffered from a HAI recover, they commonly desire or need to perform the same activity at altitude in the immediate or distant future. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION As based on key text references and peer-reviewed journal articles from a Medline search, ...

Hypoxia or Oxygen deficiency, contributes significantly to the pathophysiology of many human diseases. High altitude is one such kind of environment where hypoxia is a major stress. The changes in the physiology at high altitude, whether short term or long term, help the successful survival of people from thousands of years. This suggests their adaptation to the adverse environment of high alti...