What effect would living at high altitude (e.g. in the Andes or on the Tibetan P

Question

What effect would living at high altitude (e.g. in the Andes or on the Tibetan Plateau) have on the gas transport cascade? This exercise serves primarily as an opportunity apply what you know about the gas transport cascade to theorize predicted effects. Nevertheless, should you like to support your predictions, published data are available. Two of the experts in this field are Dr. Peter Wagner (http://profiles.ucsd.edu/peter.wagner) and Dr. Tatum Simonson (http://profiles.ucsd.edu/tatum.simonson), both of UCSD’s Department of Medicine. Click their names for links to recent publications (and beware that for some reason, a bunch of Dr. Wagner’s say they were published in 1985; that’s not correct). ???? In your answer, you should include (and discuss in depth) terms and processes such as gas transport cascade, convection, diffusion, FO2, PO2, PiO2, PaO2, PAO2, ventilation, tidal volume, total pulmonary ventilation, alveolar ventilation, dead space, diffusion, hemoglobin, Hb-O2 dissociation curve, Hb-O2 affinity, hematocrit, blood oxygen carrying capacity, cardiac output, heart rate, pacemaker cells, SA node, funny channels, stroke volume, Frank-Starling mechanism, contractility, cardiac hypertrophy, preload, afterload, oxygen consumption (VO2), etc.

Explanation / Answer

At high altitude, the partial pressure of oxygen is less than that at the ground level. This leads to low concentrations of oxygen in the blood and tissues of people living at high altitude or climbers. Low blood oxygen causes climbers to become weak and unable to think clearly, symptoms of a condition known as anoxia.

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