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New Scientific Discovery

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Jason Billows

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Sep 17, 2002
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I was watching a Canadian Science news show today called Daily Planet. They had a story that I thought everyone may be interested in.

As you may know, people who live in the Andes of South America have adapted to living at high altitudes. Their lung capacity is about 25% larger than the average person and apparently their hemoglobin levels are higher, carrying about 25% more oxygen through their blood.

Until recently, this sounded like a sensible adaptation and so scientists assumed this was the case for populations around the world that live at altitude. But, recent discoveries show that this is not the case.

The report talked about a Dr. Bell (Gina I believe), who has been studying Tibetans. Apparently they have not adapted to living at altitude in the same way as those who live in the Andes. What Dr. Bell has been finding is that Tibetans living at altitude actually have less oxygen carrying capacity in their blood. She is now studying to find out why and how they have adapted to living at altitude with less oxygen than the average person living at sea level. At first they thought that perhaps their lifestyles were simply much less active, but it's the opposite - they work extremely had at altitude.

Has anyone else heard of this? I have searched for more information on the web but was unsuccessful in finding anything.

I'm sure that there will be some findings coming from this research that will be of interest to freedivers.

Jason
 
Reactions: naiad
My guess is that the Andeans have a higher P50, and the Tibetans have a lower P50. This would allow the tibetans to get by with less O2 carrying capacity.

P50 = an indicator of the hemoglobin oxygen affinity, or how 'sticky' the hemoglobin is in binding oxygen

For inhale statics you want a low P50 (high affinity), for exhale statics you want a high P50 (low affinity).
 
Reactions: naiad
i have never heard of this but if you think about the history of the Andes it makes sense.
The present Andeans predecessors were the Incas (in the Peruvian part). They built civilisations on top of mountains (Machu Picchu) and so must have developed some kind of adaptation by means of natural selection.

The Aymara and Quechua may still carry strains of this adaptation in their genes... it's just a wild guess but looking at the history of the Andes it's well possible.

If you walk up Macchu Picchu to the top and look at the complexity of the ruins of the buildings up there, those people would have had to have some innate strength unlike other members of the human race 500 years ago, to be to have managed to live and work at such high altitude.

Also they chew a lot of coca leaves... which increases their metabolism.

Just the by the way, it's a place well worth a visit...



 
This is interesting - I have a low Hb, so probably less O2 carrying capacity, and I am good at inhale statics, but fail miserably at exhale statics. I haven't had it measured for a while, and maybe hard training would change things.

Lucia
 
i read somewhere that the way they sent messages in some tribes in the andes around macchu picchu was runners, and these runners would regularly run themselves to death, sending messages. Imagine what kind of altitude training that would have been.
 
Jason:
I saw this documentary last year, when the DC released its series about the Everest climb (with the Canadian-Ottawa team).
The big question that she was trying to answer was if it was adaptation or if it was genetic, and they said there that the study could still take some time.

It sounds interesting and we all will be glad to hear news about this topic and to see if we can apply something of this in freediving.

Quasimodo: the runners were called chasquis, and they used to run short distances, not marathons. Along a way, there were several spots called tambos, where chasquis lived. The same concept as a relay race from our days.


Cheers,

Roberto
 
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