Hi!
This is my first post here. I was not able to find much conversation related to this issue so I decided to do a new post.
I am about to begin mountaineering next year and my goal is to summit Mont Blanc after some years of training in Norway first. As I have been reading a lot about mountaineering I came across a research that might be familiar to many of You.
Here is the article:
http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(05)00674-1/pdf
The article is about high altitudes causing brain damage. In the research, they found out that even lower altitudes might cause brain damage. Even some of the guys who went to Mont Blanc suffered brain damage.
Does anyone of you know that is there any other research with similar results?
Of course, acclimatization is key to avoid altitude sickness. But I was wondering that if hypoxia is the cause of these lesions in the brain, do You think that taking ascent easier would prevent hypoxic conditions as you then burn little bit less oxygen? Or is it just that even being in high altitude without doing anything physically demanding will cause damage. What role does the level of physical fitness play in this?
Also, I have heard that basically You can't prepare yourself to high altitudes beforehand. But some time ago as I was starting freediving I found out that practicing long breath holds makes similar changes into ones body as being in higher altitudes for prolonged time. Doing these breath holds was studied to make your blood to have more red blood cells. I'm I wrong to think that maybe freediving a lot would be good for "acclimatizing" beforehand.
Long post, many guestions and bad english (English is not my mother language)
Regards
Sami from Finland