How do Tibetans avoid altitude sickness?

Due to the region's elevation, the average traveler to Tibet often experiences altitude sickness -- a condition caused by a lack of oxygen in the blood. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn how Tibetans have adapted to life in high altitudes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
it free, visit go to meeting dot com slash stuff. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck where
right there? Oh, how's it going, Chuck? That's going great? Good.
I'm glad to hear it. I'm glad. I don't know
how many times a year you go to Tibet. These days,

(00:42):
I've cut it. I had to cut back to two
just because of finances in the economy. Yeah, I mean,
jet fuel is very expensive, very Do you ever fly
first class business class? Nothing? But oh wow, sometimes I
fly it in the cockpit that's awesome, which is above
first class? Actually, oh yeah, definitely. That's like pilot class.
Do you know a pilot is how you get in
or do you just kind of break in? You just

(01:02):
show up like, Hey, how's it going. I'm an amiable guy,
and they just they let me in there. Then they
locked the door, of course for safety reasons after you're in. Yes, yeah,
I can see that. Well, when you've been to Tibet, which,
as I'm sure you know, is the rooftop of the world. Right, Uh,
there's all sorts of villages like high up on these mountains,
and you toured any of them. No, I've never been

(01:23):
to Tibet. Okay, Oh, that all that was alive. Then
I thought you meant Tibet Georgia. You fly to Tibet, Georgia.
That's a short flight, it is. Okay. Well, no, no, chuck,
We're talking about Tibet, the the the much disputed province
outside of China, right, I'm not entirely certain is it
a part of China yet? I don't know, and I

(01:44):
actually look today and to see if it was in
fact a country, and I think technically they still have
to call it a region or a province. I got you,
And I know they have the government in exile right
by the Dalai Lama, who I actually saw once. Did
you know that, Yeah? I did. Yeah, Okay, So anyway,
we're that's the Tibet we're talking about where the Dalai
Lama hails from Okay. Um. Well, it turns out that

(02:04):
there's there's villages everywhere. I've never visited either, I've just
read about it. There's villages on the tops of these mountains,
which is why it's called the roof top of the world. UM.
And these people are living at like sixteen thousand feet
above sea level, which is really high. Denver are mile
high city, it's like five thousand feet above sea level.
So these people that make Denver look like nothing. It's

(02:26):
technically I think that the three point zero three mile
high country in the region, right, that's that's that's what
it's more commonly called. UM. So if you go, if
you're just you know, a regular sea level dweller like
you or I, uh, and we go visit to bed.
Especially when we're visiting like these highest villages, UM, generally

(02:48):
we would get hypoxia altitude sickness, which is like nausea, dizziness, vomiting,
shortness of breath. You can actually die from it. UM.
And so you're sitting there puking your guts out, wishing
you were dead. And all of these Tibetans are running
around happy as clams, spas are laughing at yet sure, yeah,

(03:09):
they're they're doing somersaults and pointing and laughing yet um,
and and so you're wondering what it's going on here,
like why aren't these people all, you know, dropping dead
of heart attacks left and right? And what's going on?
And obviously what you would think is, well, they're used
to it, which makes sense, right, Yeah, that's kind of
an easy way to explain it. It It is. It is,

(03:29):
but when you think about it, they shouldn't be used
to it. Humans shouldn't be used to hypoxia. So have
have you heard about how Tibetans avoid altitude sickness? I have, Josh.
I read your awesome article and it actually was really interesting.
I thought, oh yeah, I did too. Actually it was
one of those assignments where I was thinking this is
gonna suck, but it turned out really well. And that

(03:52):
actually has been my experience. The more I thought the
article was gonna suck, the better it turned out. Yeah,
I had the same experience. Actually, yeah, it's kind of cool.
So chuck a little background on hypoxia, right, All it
is is um, it's it's a lack of oxygen in
the blood, right, and of course we need oxygen to
carry out all sorts of vital processes that you know,

(04:12):
staying alive and metabolization and all that. Sure, okay, um
so these people have been trying to figure out how, uh,
the Tibetans aren't hypoxic. Okay, yeah, I know it's coming.
They actually are hypoxic. I was kind of amazed by that.

(04:33):
It is. It's a little amazing these people are running
around their hypoxic that they're not displaying any symptoms. So
this of course raises a little bit of curiosity among researchers.
If Tibetans are hypoxic, how are they you know, not
showing symptoms right? Why aren't they just vomiting NonStop? What
a bad country that would be if I don't think

(04:54):
people would want to go to Tibet if that was
the case. The national flag is some guy like just
you knowing projectile vomitation. Um. So these researchers, they think
they were from the I can't remember where they were from,
maybe Emery or Case Western, Case Western, same thing. Yeah.
Um So these guys from Case Western go and they

(05:14):
actually they did this really hands on um investigation. They
used instruments that that can sense different types of particles
in air, and they asked Tibetans to breathe into this
to mouth briefly, and it's one of your favorite subjects, breathers. Right. Yeah, Well,
I mean if they're if they're being asked to mouth
breathe that as long as it's not like your default setting,

(05:36):
I don't have a problem with. Right. So they weren't
like your your arch enemy key for Sutherland famous mouth breathing. Yeah,
um yeah, so okay, they were mouth breathing, agreed, But
they were mouth breathing with case Western instruments in front
of them. Sure, and this is what the people found. Uh,
this mystery has been solved, and it's pretty interesting stuff. Um.
When we exhale, you know, we we exhale carbon dioxide.

(05:59):
That's like the big star of our exhalation. That's what
everybody knows about. We also exhale this stuff called nitric oxide,
which our body gets rid of as a as a
waste product right through respiration. Um. The thing is is
nitric oxide actually helps dilate blood vessels. Okay, so the

(06:20):
Tibetans of actually their bodies have acclimated to hypoxia by
keeping more of the nitric oxide in the body, so
their blood vessels are dilated more all the time, which
means their heart has to work class right, which it's
It makes it easier to deliver the oxygen throughout the body.
It's pretty cool. It is very cool. And Okay, so

(06:40):
now we have a perfect example of UM evolution and isolation. Okay. Uh,
some humans have gone up to where humans aren't supposed
to be and have adapted. Uh, They're not the only
group that's done that. There's some other groups, right indeed,
So uh, my hypothesis would be that that these other
groups would display the same phenotype, the same trait, right,

(07:03):
you would think people anyone living at a high altitude
anywhere in the world, because we evolve more or less
at sea level. Is that correct? Yeah, And we're we're
sea level species and we're a subtropical species. Yeah, that's
where we're supposed to be. We're beach commerce essentially pretty much. Yeah. Yeah,
but of course, you know, we've got the our Nordic
friends up north, you know, and uh, we have um
our friends down in Chile and and and these you

(07:26):
know people in Tibet. Humans live where we're not supposed
to live, and the Tibetans show that we can adapt exactly.
But when you think that we would all adapt the
same way given the similar situations, I would think so.
But we found out, or you found out through your research,
that's not the case. Yes, And actually this has been
known for a while. The Tibetan case, Western study was

(07:47):
I think it's in the last decade two five. There's
this Frenchman named Francois of y'all I believe, um. And
in eighteen ninety he visited the Andies. This is another
high altitude mountain and dwelling people martu Pechu, you know,
way back on the hills south right. Um. So he
goes down there because he had the same question you know,

(08:08):
a century or so ago. He wanted to know how
these people were living at high altitudes when you know
they should be suffering from hypoxia. Do you know what
he found out? I do? And was it that they
keep more nitric oxide? No, Actually he theorized and was correct.
They um had more red blood cells, higher red blood
cell count. And that's important because red blood cells um

(08:31):
contain hemoglobin, which is sort of like the FedEx man
of your body. Hemoglobin delivers oxygen, right, so they have
their bodies produce more red bloods, more red bloods, so
it can. I guess every part per million of blood
can hold more oxygen than you know, yours are mine, right,
So okay, so we've got to um, high altitude dwelling

(08:54):
groups of people that have evolved in isolation but have
evolved to have a differently. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. Yes,
And there's a third. There is a third you want
to tell them about it? Yeah, this is the highlands
of Ethiopia, which I didn't realize Ethiopia had highlands. I
don't know much about that place, and I didn't either
actually until this very article, which is a great part

(09:15):
about our job. We learned things all the time. Um.
So they don't have either one of these, as you know. No,
and they're living in a high altitude as well. I
think the Tibetans live the highest up. But both the
Andean dwellers and the people who live in the Ethiopian highlands,
they're living in a high enough altitude that they should
be hypoxic. Right. And also with studies of them, they

(09:35):
haven't turned up any of the Ethiopian Highlanders, they haven't
turned up any kind of adaptation. Yeah, that's the one
that really is strange. They don't. They don't have any
kind of oxygen delivery system like extra red blood cells.
They don't maintain their and O levels more than normal people.

(09:56):
And it's possible that we just haven't found the fee
know type this this adapt taste true, we haven't figured
it out yet. But for all intensive purposes, these people
should be you know, dead, dying or you know, vomiting
at the very least, all right, but they're not. It's weird.
It's weird. Yeah, and you know, Josh, reading this article,
it made me wonder, um, and may there may be

(10:18):
studies on this. If if people from tibet um and
the Ethiopian highlands, if they have trouble when they come
down to sea level or below. Let's say they went
to Amsterdam for the weekend, which is half of Holland
resides below sea level. Yeah, I wonder if they have
problems breathing, or if if their body adapts to that
quickly or what, or if there'd be like a rush

(10:39):
of oxygen. Yeah, exactly, they get too much of it, right,
they might feel high all the time or something which
would be kind of cool. Of course it is answered
in yeah, right right. I think that they would probably
feel high no matter what. Yeah in hello to our
Dutch friends, we love you alright. So other than the
Ethiopian Highlanders, I mean, the questions have been asked and answered.
We know why the Tibetans aren't hypoxic, and we also

(11:02):
know why the why the andy and dwellers aren't hypoxes.
Right well, actually Tibetans are hypoxes, yes, how they deal
with it right, sure, So I think we'll probably revisit
it once we finally figure out what's going on with
the Ethiopian Highland. I think that's a great idea. And
stick around to find out which article that Chuck and
I think you should read in these trying economic times.

(11:23):
They'll save your finances. What's that article that that we
teased all of our listeners were right and these trying
economic times, I think one article people should read is
uh tent Top five things that devalue your house by
Jessica Toothman. Jessica Toothman fellow writer, and uh, now is
not the time to devalue your home. Everyone knows you

(11:43):
want to add value to your home or at least
you know, total line and keep it dead even exactly
and Toothman can tell you some some easy steps you
can take to keep your house from devaluing, depending on
how you read it, If you're looking to devalue your
house for semina farious reason, this could be a how
to guide for that as well. Like spite fantastic Well,
you can find all this stuff everything we've talked about

(12:05):
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