SIXTY years after Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to climb Everest, the world's highest mountain is a busy place. When the weather is good in mid to late May, the upper slopes are crowded with hundreds of climbers. With every step available to view on YouTube, you might think there is nothing left to explore on the roof of the world. You would be wrong.
A team from the Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine (CASE) at University College London recently spent several weeks on Everest studying hundreds of trekkers, climbers and Sherpas. The findings from their work and that of others is radically changing our understanding of how our bodies adapt to altitude, particularly the low oxygen levels experienced there.
Don't assume this revolution only affects a few groups of people around the world. Anyone with anaemia, heart failure and a wide ...
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