The Xtreme Everest team approaching the summit of Everest during the last expedition. Credit: Caudwell Xtreme Everest
A dedicated team of intensive care doctors, nurses and scientists are taking over 200 people to the Himalayas to study how our bodies respond to low levels of oxygen. Researchers from UCL Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine (CASE) will lead the team on a trek to three locations in the Himalayas: Everest Base Camp, Namche Bazaar and Kathmandu. Here, at altitudes over 1,400 metres, clinicians will conduct experiments on themselves and volunteers to see how their bodies cope with the low oxygen levels at extreme altitude. The results will help scientists to develop treatments that will benefit critically ill patients in intensive care. Although intensive care units save many lives, up to 40 per cent of patients admitted will not survive. "Some people seem to manage better with low oxygen levels than others, and there is still limited understanding about why this is," said expedition leader, Daniel Martin (UCL Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine), one of five UCL researchers involved in the Xtreme Everest expedition. The Himalayas might be thousands of miles from UK hospital wards but it is very difficult to study patients in intensive care units, not least because they are so ill.
TO READ THIS ARTICLE, CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT
And extend your reading, free of charge and with no commitment.
