Students research mountain sickness
Research carried out by medical students on a foreign expedition could be used to develop treatments for mountain sickness, it emerged today.
Undergraduates from Edinburgh University spent 10 days in Bolivia studying the effects of altitude sickness on the human body.
They discovered important defensive chemicals in the blood called antioxidants may be increased at high altitude.
The party comprised of six medical students, three doctors and a further 17 students who acted as experimental subjects.
They worked at a high altitude laboratory and conducted further research while climbing the 6,460-metre peak, Illimani.
The focus of their research, which will be broadcast on BBC’s Tomorrow’s World, was potentially fatal physiological conditions which strike at high altitudes.
They also analysed why certain conditions, such as asthma and chronic bronchitis, are caused, or complicated by, a lack of oxygen.
Expedition leader Kenneth Baillie said the findings were significant.
He said: ‘‘Antioxidants are the body’s natural defence against damagingly reactive chemicals called free radicals.
‘‘This could be important in protecting the body from mountain sickness, and indeed the volunteers who were evacuated with severe mountain sickness had very low antioxidant levels,’’ he said.
The fourth-year medical student added: ‘‘Another blood test identified a hormone which may be important in causing dangerous changes in lung blood vessels when the body lacks oxygen.
‘‘This could be important not only in the treatment of mountain sickness, but also sea-level illnesses like chronic bronchitis.
