High Altitude Climbing :: essays research papers fc

utmost natural elevation climbing is a very dangerous sport, well, we wont call it a sport, it is more like a profession for exceedingly skilled individuals. High aggrandizement climbing is when mountain climbers decide that they deficiency to climb higherand more difficult mountains. To do this they need the mighty training and also need to know the effects of high altitude climbing to their bodies. The consistence attempts to maintain a state of homeostasis or residue to ensure the optimal operating(a) environs for its complex chemical systems. any(prenominal) heighten from this homeostasis is a change away from the best possible operating environment. The body attempts to correct this imbalance. One such imbalance is the effect of increase altitude on the bodys ability to provide adequate group O to be utilized in cellular respiration. With an increase in elevation, a emblematic occurrence when climbing mountains, the body is forced to respond in discordant ways to the changes in external environment. Foremost of these changes is the diminished ability to invite oxygen from the atmosphere. If the adaptive responses to this stressor are inadequate the performance of body systems may decline dramatically. If prolonged the results can be serious or so far fatal. In looking at the effect of altitude on body functioning we first must understand what occurs in the external environment at higher elevations and then observe the important changes that occur in the internal environment of the body in response. In discussing altitude change and its effect on the body mountaineers generally define altitude fit to the scale of high (8,000 - 12,000 feet), very high (12,000 - 18,000 feet), and extremely high (18,000+ feet), (Hubble, 1995). A common misperception of the change in external environment with increased altitude is that there is decreased oxygen. This is not correct as the concentration of oxygen at sea level is about 21% and stays comparative ly unchanged until over 50,000 feet (Johnson, 1988). What is really happening is that the atmospheric pressure is diminish and subsequently the amount of oxygen available in a whizz breath of air is significantly less. At sea level the barometric pressure averages 760 mmHg while at 12,000 feet it is only 483 mmHg. This decrease in bestow atmospheric pressure means that there are 40% less oxygen molecules per breath at this altitude compared to sea level (Princeton, 1995). The pulmonary surface and the thickness of the alveolar membranes are not directly moved(p) by a change in altitude.