fatdad wrote:The effects on vision of people who have had radial keratotomy. I heard of instance of people on Everest having vision problems. Supposedly the lack of air pressure at higher altitudes permits the eyes to bulge out more, but I don't know if this theory has ever been tested or at what altitude the effects become noticeable.

The very well known case of this was Beck Wethers on Everest in 1996. His vision difficulties were only the beginning of much bigger problems that followed.

The effect of high altitude on hot teachers. Hopefully they could fund me.

xDoogiex wrote:The effect of high altitude on hot teachers. Hopefully they could fund me.

I'm guessing they'll have to "fund" the teachers for that one.

I've also been thinking about studies that don't heavily rely on funding. One I came up with is altitudes influence on taste. I guess most of us have been in the situation that your favorite food at sea level is totally unbearable at altitude.

I must admit that the idea of testing the effects of supplements at altitude/on acclimatisation is starting to grow more and more on me. I've consistently had acclimatisation difficulties in the past, so finding a solution (or something that eases the pain) does sound good to me.

sjarelkwint wrote:

peladoboton wrote:

squishy wrote:Alcohol consumption...

i hear a lot of people get sauced at base camp after the climb, Squish, so we could individualize a "study" for you

Last year I've been drinking a bottle of wine with 2 persons at iceberg lake (Mt Whitney - 3900m???) And I was giggling like a 12 year old girl who drank alcohol for the first time in het life ...

It was great

Sounds like saturday

Borut Kantušer wrote:Sjarelkwint,are you suggesting to smoke in the valley so as to get used to being out of breath when you're up higher?

Christine,

Good to hear from you again and thanks a lot for the rather lenghty contribution. I'm still very much interested in this, as I'm still set on a) climbing Aconcagua in 2012 and b) helping out summit post user Peladoboton, who is the one that will actually be conducting the research. I'll forward your contribution to him, as I read that he won't be online for a while because of his exams.

Thanks again!

Here's a research project. Like many women out there my daughter suffers from constant headaches varying in degrees of pain. She felt it was linked to changes in weather and her symptoms sounded very similar to AMS. Out of curiousity, I'm in research, I decided to chart here daily pain level versus the local barometric pressure. Over three months there was definitely a correlation. Whenever the local barometric pressure dropped her pain level increased. The faster the drop the larger the jump in pain level. I then checked how quickly the barometric pressure changed when low pressure zones entered the area and to my disbelief it was much faster than climbers when they ascend a mountain. Many women around the world suffer from headaches (migraines) and believe they are triggered by weather patterns. Could it be that something in their genetic makeup is allowing them to be affected by changes in barometric pressure below 10,000 feet when most of us are not?

If this was the case and you could find out why think of all the people around the world that could be helped!

I think the pot study would actually be very interesting. When I'm hiking and climbing with my regular group, there are stoners and people who won't touch the stuff, and every time without fail, the stoners have no problem with altitude while those who don't smoke have missed out on a few summits due to altitude problems.

peladoboton wrote:

drpw wrote:I think the pot study would actually be very interesting. When I'm hiking and climbing with my regular group, there are stoners and people who won't touch the stuff, and every time without fail, the stoners have no problem with altitude while those who don't smoke have missed out on a few summits due to altitude problems.

the stoners likely are very used to have thier physiology messed with on a regular basis compared with the non-touchers (the group i happen to find myself in)....

....i have always thought about ed vieturs' comment on how he spent hundred of hours swimming growing up, and pushing himself to take fewer and fewer breaths while doing so to push his system to be able to take more stress ('No Shortcuts To The Top')

Almost every competitive swimmer does some sort of hypoxic workout. I did a lot of hypoxic swimming since I was a long distance swimmer and I used it as a sort of relaxation excersize for the first half of a lot of my swims. I have not ever had any trouble with altitude up to 14,500 except for breathing a little harder.