What is it about?
Blood pressure is known to rise in some individuals in response to increased altitude. This may have greater clinical significance than has been realised, and has not been fully investigated.
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Why is it important?
This study may stimulate further, more detailed investigation, and may even help avoid some unexplained deaths at extreme altitude. It also explains how non-medical, recreational trekkers may safely monitor their own responses to the altitudes often encountered on adventure holidays and treks.
Perspectives
On an attempt to climb Aconcagua, while feeling entirely fit and well, I was stopped at the standard half-way medical examination because my blood pressure had rocketed to dangerous levels. There were no warning symptoms, and without that examination I would certainly have continued the climb. Investigative reading on return showed this to be an under-researched clinical problem. The resulting study, necessarily small and preliminary because I have retired, began this further investigation in the hope of stimulating others, and also demonstrated how non-medical trekkers could monitor themselves. It may also help doctors who are asked to advise adventure-trekkers before their holidays.
Mrs Jean Macrae Turner
None - retired
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Deaths at high altitude: Reducing the risk. A preliminary field study, Scottish Medical Journal, November 2015, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0036933015619313.
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