Altitude medicine

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The altitude medicine is a branch of mountain medicine (including mountain medicine or Alpine Medicine ). In an interdisciplinary manner, it deals specifically with the health effects of people staying at high altitudes, especially when climbing at high altitude . Topics in altitude medicine are dealt with primarily in sports medicine , but also in aviation medicine and travel medicine .

Subject

→ Main article: Altitude sickness

With sufficient acclimatization , the human body can adapt to staying at high altitudes (up to a maximum of about 5,000 m, not more). Among other things, he reacts with:

  • Hyperventilation : initially leads to a decreasing pulse rate, after a few hours to a sharp increase, only after one or two days does it decrease again
  • Increase in cardiac output
  • Increasing hemoglobin concentration in the blood: only after two to three weeks is further acclimatization achieved, after five to six months an optimal value

In the case of insufficient acclimatization, altitude sickness can occur. Acute and life-threatening forms that can result from altitude sickness are:

Other significant health risks associated with high-altitude mountaineering are, in addition to the risk of accidents, above all hypothermia (hypothermia), hypohydration (lack of water, see also dehydration and desiccosis ) and hypoglycemia (hypoglycaemia). B. Heat and UV radiation , nutritional errors and stress in dangerous situations.

Research in altitude medicine

Altitude medicine has developed particularly since the first ascent and increasing tourism in the highest mountain regions of the world, as well as the increase in the number of mountain sports. One of the pioneers of altitude medicine is Charles Snead Houston (1913–2009), a mountaineer who led the first American expedition to K2 (1938) and who took part in the first exploration tour of Mount Everest's south face (1950). In addition to numerous alpine studies, he also wrote alpine medicine works. The private research of Alexander Mitchell Kellas also provided important insights (around 1920 he was one of the first scientists ever to point out the possible use of oxygen-enriched breathing air at high altitudes; he also took part in the British Mount Everest Expedition in 1921, in which but he died on the approach) and the decompression chamber experiments by Professor Georges Dreyer , who was active as an altitude medical advisor to the Royal Air Force . After his studies, which he carried out with George Ingle Finch (Finch was a researcher and teacher at Imperial College , he took part in the British Mount Everest Expedition in 1922 ), he was of the opinion that survival in extreme mountain heights was only possible additional oxygen is possible. Furthermore, the observations of Paul Bert , who investigated the death of balloonists at high altitudes, were used. The first mountain in the Himalayas to be climbed with supplemental oxygen was Trishul in 1907.

On numerous expeditions to the highest mountain regions on earth, research on altitude medicine is carried out from different sides. In the highest hut in the Alps, the 4554 m high Capanna Regina Margherita (so-called “headache box”) on the Signalkuppe / Punta Gnifetti in the Monte Rosa area, there is now a well-known international center for altitude physiological research.

Professional societies

The following are active in German-speaking countries under the umbrella of the International Society for Mountain Medicine :

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ George I. Finch and his pioneering use of oxygen for climbing at extreme altitudes. In: Journal of Applied Physiology , Vol. 94, Issue 5, 1702-1713, May 2003. American Physiological Society, accessed June 18, 2010 (English report on the early studies on the use of supplemental oxygen): “1922 George Ingle Finch was the first person to prove the great value of supplementary oxygen for climbing at extreme altitudes "

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