SummitPost.org

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

The researchers got it the wrong way around. You have to have brain damage to climb mountains in the first place.

samitintti wrote: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

Virtually every expedition to the Himalaya from the early 20's through even today had a doctor accompany the trip for the express reason to monitor and take notes on the affects of high altitude on the brain. I would suggest do a Google search for the doctors names (some are known to be experts) and read what they have recorded.

The main issue I have with the study is that they did not do before and after MRIs of the climbers, they only did the MRIs after the climbs, so there is no way to tie the lesions found to the high altitude exposure. Notably, they describe another study which DID do before and after MRIs of the climbers and most of them did not get new lesions from the climbs. Only 2 climbers got lesions and they "had symptoms of high-altitude sickness":

"In another study of 9 climbers with MRI before and after ascent, cortical atrophy and white matter hyperintensities were seen before climbing in 5 subjects and new lesions in 2 climbers who had symptoms of high-altitude illness. No MRI changes were observed
in a series of 8 climbers that participated in 3 expeditions ascending [to] 7100 m."
So in the above described study, most of the brain lesions were present before the climbs and 8 climbers who went to 7,100 meters on 3 different climbs got no lesions at all. That doesn't convince me that you will necessarily get brain damage from climbing. It could vary based on genetics and/or whether you experience some form of cerebral edema.

The authors speculate that climbers who don't acclimatize carefully or well and who experience high-altitude sickness are the ones who get the lesions. Makes sense to me. So just take extra steps to acclimatize. Take more time than the minimum time. Go a few days earlier than you might otherwise do and raise your sleeping altitude more gradually.

ExcitableBoy wrote:The researchers got it the wrong way around. You have to have brain damage to climb mountains in the first place.

Good one!!

A bit off-topic, but the oldest American male ever to qualify for the Olympic marathon trials, at age 43, attributes part of his success to "regularly sleeping inside an altitude-simulating tent, where he inhales the reduced oxygen levels that would be available at ten thousand feet"
http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting- ... mod-latest

There was some research in 2013 finding that those that suffer altitude sickness had issues with the right heart ventricle pumping blood or something . It was a small study but suggested there is way to identify those at greater risk of AMS.

So the are many things that can reduce the risk or manage the event, but must be things that make someone more vulnerable to it, and vice versa.

http://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Press-O ... n-sickness