Everest hosts breathtaking medical research | Greg Foot

The Xtreme Everest project is investigating why some people cope better with low oxygen conditions than othersIt is a disconcerting feeling, not being able to breathe. It wasn't as though I was running for a bus or anything like that either; I was simply walking to the lab – a gentle 50 or so metres up a very shallow incline. Yet, every few steps I found myself buckled into an almost vertical foetal position, trying to suck the cold, thin air deep into my lungs.It shouldn't have been a surprise. I was higher than I'd ever been in my life, bent double on a point that would soar over anywhere in Europe, even the snowy peak of Mont Blanc. The lab, my home for a short stretch in April this year, was at Everest Base Camp, 5,364 metres above sea level. Here, a lungful of the thin air only contains half of the oxygen it would at sea level. That oxygen is crucial to making me function, and my body didn't like it."The lab" doesn't really do the Xtreme Everest 2  expedition justice. Picture two giant tents, double-skinned to keep the heat in, packed with the latest medical technology — including two exercise bikes with full gas analysis systems, centrifuges, blood sampling kits and much more — all powered from a smaller tent next door that housed scores of car batteries.Oh, and the whole set-up was perched on top of a moving, groaning ice sheet that, at night froze the electrics inside and, at midday, threatened them with an icy meltwater deluge. That's just part o...
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