Perhaps high altitude training isn’t just for athletes?!
Simulated high altitude could help older patients at risk of health complications related to surgery, a new study has found
A randomised trial of eight volunteers (very small sample) spent a week exposed to reduced oxygen levels that simulated high altitude in a residential hypoxia facility, to see if breathing less oxygen could benefit their physical health.
The research is published in Anaesthesia by researchers from King’s College London, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the University of Limerick.
- Many patients waiting to have major surgery have low levels of fitness, high BMI, sedentary lifestyles or anaemia, which are associated with higher rates of complications and deaths after surgery.
- Altitude training is known to improve fitness and lead to higher blood levels (haemoglobin, which carries oxygen in the body) in athletes through exposure to reduced oxygen levels (hypoxia), which are similar to the conditions passengers experience during an airline flight.
- The researchers found that simulated high altitude stimulated a large increase in haemoglobin in participants but led to no major changes in their aerobic fitness.
- This increase in haemoglobin could be clinically beneficial ahead of surgery.
- In practice, small scale hypoxic canopies could be provided to patients to use while sleeping for the weeks leading up to their surgery.