What Does Altitude Sickness Do to the Human Brain?
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- čas přidán 7. 06. 2024
- As if climbing a mountain wasn’t hard enough already, forcing the body to acclimate to high altitudes too quickly can not only stop someone from reaching the summit, it can have dire consequences.
But altitude sickness doesn’t just affect adrenaline-driven mountaineers. It can also catch up with you just on a drive up to the mountains.
The biggest difference between low altitudes and high altitudes is not a lack of oxygen but rather a change in the atmospheric pressure. The amount of oxygen in the ambient air we breathe doesn't change between low altitudes like sea level and high altitudes like Mount Everest. It is instead this atmospheric pressure that drives the gas exchange from the lungs to the red blood cells, which then carry oxygen to the rest of the body, according to Jan Stepanek, an internal medicine and aerospace specialist.
So because there is less pressure at high altitudes, it is harder for the body to take up the oxygen. And while, if you ascend to a high altitude slowly, your body is able to adapt to the lack of ambient pressure by breathing faster and elevating the heart rate, if you jump from low altitudes to high altitudes too fast, your body doesn't have the time to adjust, struggles with the change, and this causes one kind of altitude sickness called acute mountain sickness. Someone with acute mountain sickness can experience symptoms of altitude sickness like headaches, lack of appetite, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and more.
Essentially, your sympothoadrenal drive (when your heart rate and your cardiac output goes up allowing your body to gradually reset to the new altitude of ambient pressure) only occurs when you increase altitudes slowly.
More dangerous forms of altitude illnesses can be a result of low carbon dioxide levels because we need certain levels of carbon dioxide to maintain a normal blood flow to the brain, so when carbon dioxide levels drop too low, blood flow to the brain starts to diminish. The changes in oxygen levels and resulting changes in breathing can cause the more dangerous altitude illnesses, high altitude cerebral edema (HACE) and high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE).
The best way to prevent altitude sickness is just by taking more time to move from low to high elevations.
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Read More:
Guidelines for Prevention and Treatment of Acute Altitude Illness
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
The Quality of Sleep at High Altitudes:
www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10...
The Tricky Business of Treating Altitude Sickness
www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/tr...
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High altitude sickness is no joke. I experienced it while visiting Peru, and it was honestly the worst pain I’ve ever felt.
I got in Peru too. It was a terrible feeling
What pain was it nausea? I’m having it rn 8,000 ft up in Colorado
I live in a mountain town at roughly 2000 meters/6500ft and tourists get sick coming up here all the time.
EStarstruck, seems like my body is pretty resilient since i felt fine while passing by Vail, CO (a town over 10,000ft). Not sure if the few days I spent at Salt Lake City helped with adapting to this
@@MysteriousFuture Yeah, probably! I went from LA to Big Bear Lake (which is where I live) multiple times in a day and I got a mild headache but I see some people who come up here and are just straight up out of commission. But I think I got used to it, being from the taller parts of Pennsylvania.
what?? i have a hard time believing that. 2000meters is the normal skiing height and i’ve even climbed up mountains 4000 meters tall and didn’t feel sick at all
It's Finnick Bitch!! yeah the peak is 2500 meters. I guess some people are more sensitive to it than others. I worked at the ski resort and I'd see people come into first aid with very clear altitude sickness a LOT.
That’s pretty unusual. People generally start feeling sick at 8,000 feet.
I've always wondered why people got sick in high altitudes. I was never one of them, I'm just thankful because my sister always spills her guts out every time on flights.
Though it's not caused by atmospheric pressure as the cabin is pressurized just make sure she doesn't look out the window:)
@@yatint9665 Hmmm, maybe we should do an episode on motion sickness
@@Seeker YES PLEASEEE :D
Reminds me of the day I landed at Cusco on my way to Machupichu, just minutes after landing my hands and feet felt very numb and tingling, I also had lost strength to carry my bags, pretty scary at the moment. It took me 2 days to feel better up there.
Walkin' Tall I know exactly how it feels, my girlfriend got really upset at me because I was ruining the vacations, cause she felt just fine and I was struggling on each breath.
i’m confused, on google it says it’s only 2500 meters above see lvl
His comment at the end is the most important. What kills people is the sunk cost fallacy, the idea they've already put so much into it they can't stop now, not fully comprehending their life is at risk.
Great video, I've suffered this before. I did find the audio difficult to understand largely due to the music choice and volume
Conclusion: The Human body is fragile but amazing.
This Was Needed! Great Job Guys!!!
Thanks King!
Cuz we are high.
This needs more upvotes
The percentage of the oxygen in the air might be the same. But the lower density of the air because of the lower pressure means that there is less oxygen per volume of air. So that should also make it more difficult to get enough oxygen in the blood. Not only the pressure itself helping less to "push" the oxygen into the blood (if that is how it works).
Altitude sickness sucks, I went from 700 feet elevation to 8700 feet in less than 24 hours. I had a massive headache, I could take more than 3 steps without being out of breath and having to put my hands on my knees. Thankfully I woke up the next morning just fine and have since learned my lesson on how my body can adjust to altitude
2:40 Is this the "Hübschhorn" at the "Simplon Pass"?
Great video, so cov2 long haul could cause pulmonary edima syndrome while the infection itself causes edima as a immune mechanism and the regulation of the diffusion of gasses, consider staying in place and decompression treatments
O2 does change with altitude at denver about 1% less than Boston.
So what would happen if you like lived on mountains Everest and the sudden went to sea level, would you be fitter/moractic?
*_If you're not sick, you might be high and if you're high, that sick_*
Our bodies are Amazing !!
Hi seeker
Another interesting and educative video..
I thought because of oxygen we get mountain sickness...
And taught in school like this.
But now i know it is due to atmospheric pressure...
Thanks for clearing and correcting us...
I always like this sick related video..
Thanks seeker...🙏
You are best...👍😊
I think this has to do with genetics also, I was born near sea level, and have lived in low lands most my life, usually not far from the beach. when I started hiking, I went to the smoky mountains, and even the highest peak on the AT trail, Clingmans Dome, but this was only about 6,600 ft. I had no i'll effects other than being tired of lugging a 50lb backpack up it.
I wanted to see if I would get sick, or feel any negative effects at high altitudes, so went up a few mountains in the Rockies, then I even tried to sleep out in the open at over 12,000 feet. and I did not feel anything strange. but I wasn't physically hiking at that altitude. years later I hiked up a mountain in the Caribbean, this peak was over 10,000 ft. and very steep climb. all I can say is these altitudes just make me more fatigued, you need to breath harder and longer, to catch your breath. and was exhausted, but all this is what I would expect since you do not have the same amount of oxygen getting into your body. lucky for me I did not experience nausea or dizziness.
But I have heard of others getting seriously i'll. or dizzy.
same i climbed a 4000 meter tall mountain switzerland and didn’t feel anything
Thanks for switching my breathing to manual
underrated comment
Thank you for the video.. As a normal person, I also want to know what the climb speed is so that it is not too fast and safe for human..
Acclimatize by splitting the difference between the elevation you’re coming from and where you’re going.
Flatlanders (sea level or similar) going up to Colorado 14ers often proves problematic.
A guy who live at 10,700’ just told me about an obese guest who died, coming straight from Miami, Florida.
What about amyloidosis???
How about doing a video about shingles? After talking to a few doctors around here I get a lot of, "We don't know, but if you find out something, let us know".
Great idea Greg, we'll add it to our list.
I use to get it for 5 -10 min when I went skiing as 10-11 yo. Extreme nausea, then the world starts to fade away. Just as almost everything goes black, it would stop.
It's just like diving deep (into the sea).
The music is distracting. You guys should know by now.
Cant this be avoided by carrying oxygen which is at normal pressure?
What am I missing?
Oh the irony. I’ve always been afflicted; breathlessness, fatigue, cyclic breathing ruining my sleep, even depression. It can take several days to go away. What’s the irony? My favorite and only sport is snow skiing. I hate Mountain Sickness.
0:41 But, in fact, there is less oxygen at High altitudes. Indeed, the percentage (molar fraction) of the oxygen remains constant (21%) until 80 km. However, as the total pressure diminishes, so do it the partial pressure of the oxygen on it (Dalton's Law) and it's content per volume unit.
At 5500 m a.s.l. there is 0.5 atm pressure, so there is half the oxygen that is at 0 m a.s.l. (per cubic meter) . Your are telling that if I take that air mixture, put it on a gas cylinder and add another gas, Nitrogen for example, until reach 1 atm pressure. I could breath it without problems? (even being less oxygen on it) (I would like to know)
Today's fact: We cut down around 27,000 trees every day to make toilet paper!
Gotta wipe my ass with something! 🤷🏻♀️
Yogesh Dhakane use water instead.
Wiping your ass is to mainstream
Then we plant 100,000 more trees
Wiping your ass? Is that a new thing?? Millenials these days...
Please explain thalasophobia
Please make video on how close are we to build iron-man arc reactor
OK who else read it Attitude and came here expecting to trash that guy whose attitude makes you sick?
I live in Texas, I have extended family that live in New Mexico. I get sick every time I’ve visited there, and my nose spontaneously starts bleeding on the trip back to Texas.
How do you do on planes
@@erocalypse21 weirdly enough I've never been on a plane.
@AmyD I also get sick in Nm drove to San Diego and got sick when i got to sea level it sucks bad so I’m scared to get on a plane ✈️
I got reverse altitude sickness. I've lived in the mountains my entire life qnd went to sea level, I feel like crap
So I live in Missouri and am fixing to vacation in Colorado for a week and just discovered this. Anyone who's a professional in this, do you think I'll have a problem? I understand to drink lots and lots of water and to take it easy for the first day or two but other than that?
I am in Colorado now on a trip and my husband and I hve been feeling it nonstop. I hear people say drink tons of water, eat carbs because your body will burn lots of fuel, and if the breathing gets worse to buy boost oxygen, oh and also take ibuprofen for headaches
There are a lot of "home remedy" sites that claim that ginger helps with altitude sickness. Is there any truth to this?
Dr. Jan looks like the villain from the first season of Happy.
If you have a larger "lung capacity" will you have less effect of Mountain sickness?
From A&P, I have one of the largest lung capacity. I'm just wondering if that would effect getting sick?
Jeremy Thelen: From what I've read, the organ you want for staving off mountain sickness is the spleen, not the lungs.
Jeremy Thelen I went camping 13k ft with both a smoker and a “fit” person, both felt weakened but the fit one could carry their backpack while the other just couldn’t
How do we go to space an not get sick? or do we get sick?
Once you get to space the pressure is controlled artificially
Mashallah
I live in Colorado so I'm good
I’m visiting Colorado rn and I feel so sick because I’m from Texas and Texas has flat land. I feel like throwing up. But it snowed today😕
unfortunately the most important point, pressure difference, is not explained here.
Question: how would you mitigate this symptoms if you are flying from, let's say, California (low altitude) to Colorado (high altitude)?
I can't really control how slowly I ascend to the state.
I live at sea level and flew to Denver 2 weeks ago. Everything was fine pretty much anywhere in Colorado. They only time I felt fuzzy was on top of Pikes peak at 14,200 feet.
I live in Phoenix and I’ve been fine in Colorado.
But up north in Arizona kills me, and Utah and Idaho
I hate that feeling
It’s real
I was at Yellowstone west gate at 7000 feet in 2017 and boy!!!!!!
Like elephant 🐘 on my chest and I was slow like on moon too.
It is like a slight hyperventilating attack
Definitely go up slow peeps
how do people leave in tibet?
Did their genes changed?
Yes through genetic mutations every Tibetan ethnic carry that gene
Perfect, my mom cant force me to do some sorta chinese therapy anyone
Did anyone else become aware they are breathing?
It's funny how that doctors answers are repeatedly interrupted
physical fitness IS important. physiological transformations due to aerobic exercises will shorten your adaptation time.
0:03 Acclimatize.
*Its probably because*
I'm afraid of heights
The bald dr guy is the voice for Stephen Hawking's computer!!! lololololz
Nepalese can resist it easily
Only Tibetan ethnic Nepali 😆 not the lowland Indian origin.
#thatyoutubechannel
I see, you are seeking hights.
Heights*
@@gus9351 my typing sucks, thanks bro.
In other news, Water is wet! Who knew?!?
Dont try it.
Short answer : less oxygen.
3rd
12th comment ommmgaahhh what
I read attitude.... high attitudes.. 🤣😂
In spite of knowing HIGH ALTITUDE effects, People build even TALLER SKYSCRAPERS.
Hmm 🤔 not quite sure that's correct, what about those people who live in the highest places in the world? Took years for them to adapt yet they still haven't fully been able to live there without problems, many generations after the first people settled there and they *still* have people coming to a doctor for altitude sickness, there's a lot more to it than this "expert" is trying to say... 🤦♂️💥 🛎
Jesus christ changing the thumbnail doesn't make me want to watch it any more than before.