[fpernett]

Hi Paul,
Those are the marvelous things about adaptation.
The high altitude natives does have pulmonary hypertension, and extreme polyglobulia (high Hb), but this doesn't correlate with pathology. Dr. Saldaña made an study in people from andin region and found hypertrophy of carotid body in a lot of woman, without any disease. But High Altitude has some problems theres is Monge's disease that is like chronic mountain sickness, the patients lost the high altitude tolerance and get extreme polyglobulia, severe hypoxemia and reduced mental and physical capacity.
The sleep apnea syndrome occurs mainly in obese, sedentary people, a physical profile quite different of an athete, also the diet is important because hypoxemia releases a lot of superoxygen and reactive oxygen species.
I do believe in hypoxic training, in fact is all I made, despite living at moderate altitude, but we need to prepare our body for the hypoxemic stress.
That is the difference between pathology and physiologic adaptation.