Researchers have found that their bodies adapt more readily to something called periodic breathing, which helps them survive.
You may have wondered how local guides leading troops of eager climbers up Mount Everest month after month, can do so without falling down, exhausted.
Or, perhaps you have questioned how your relatives in Denver seem to love hiking to high heights, and do so with ease. The answer to these questions is that, part of their ease has to do with training and conditioning, and the other part could be genetics.
Researchers from Lancaster University have discovered that people who live at high altitudes have different genes than the rest of us.
Those who live at high heights have developed an evolutionary adaptation. It’s related to the way their blood delivers oxygen to their brain, and to the rest of their body.
When any human is at a high altitude, they are existing in a lower-oxygen environment.
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When this occurs, changes take place in your body. In extreme cases, your body will alternate between hyperventilating or breathing too fast, and apnoea, which is not breathing at all. This happens naturally as you struggle to get more oxygen.
This altered respiratory pattern is also accompanied by changes in your heart rate and blood flow.
It has been found that people who live at high altitudes respond differently than the rest of us when their body engages in periodic breathing. They are more efficient. Researchers feel they are more alert to oxygen insufficiency. Because of this, their bodies adapt to breathing in a better way to suit their needs, for survival, and it is a gene that causes the difference.
The reason all of this is relevant to the medical field, is that it can apply to regular patients. Things like hypoxia-not having enough oxygen in your tissues- can occur during rapid ascents to high altitudes. It can also happen at sea level. A person enduring cancer or suffering from a heart attack or stroke can experience hypoxia. The findings in this study could help to further research that can develop better treatments for these individuals, scientists say.
The report was published in the Journal of Physiology, and involved an international team of researchers. To read more, click here.
