14 DAY TRIAL // A team of eight doctors climbed the highest peak in the world, Mount Everest in Nepal, to analyze the effects of hypoxia on the human brain, as well as the differences in oxygen amounts in the blood between critically-ill patients and high-altitude climbers. Usually, the levels of oxygen at such elevations can trigger massive organ failures, comas, and even death, to the most qualified sportsmen.
The team attempted to conduct their experiments at the summit but were prevented from doing so by harsh weather conditions, which forced them to descend about 400 meters, to relative safety. At about 8,450 meters, some of them removed the lower part of their clothes and had blood drawn from their femoral artery.
"The disadvantage is you have to uncover a little bit more of yourself than you would like at those temperatures. We want to understand why humans respond differently to low oxygen levels," said University College London researcher and study leader, Mike Grocott. The experiment was conducted in a chilly -25 degrees Celsius (-13 degrees Fahrenheit).
He added that the effort came in an attempt to isolate exactly what causes critically-ill patients with hypoxia to die when others on mountain tops, subjected to far lower oxygen levels in their blood streams, live. "The problem with studying critically ill patients is there are so many other things going on it makes it difficult to single out the effects of any one variable," Grocott explained.
Blood test results revealed that the scientists showed the lowest level of oxygen in blood ever recorded, averaging at 2.55 kilopascals, which is several times lower than the average 12-14 kilopascals for healthy persons, and 8 kp for the critically-ill patients in hospitals.
The stake of the experiment was for doctors to find a way of determining when a patient who is very sick can be deprived of oxygen shots, which would otherwise be administered right away, though they carry the risk of serious side-effects. "What is interesting about this is there may be some patients who can tolerate lower levels and get less harm from these other interventions," Grocott concluded.