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Sherpas and Tibetans have thousands of years of natural selection to develop increased survival ability at altitude. Non-native residents of the mountain west
by sswaner 12y ago
Sherpas and Tibetans have thousands of years of natural selection to develop increased survival ability at altitude. Non-native residents of the mountain west states have only been there for no more than 167 years, having mostly immigrated from lower altitude regions.
- gwern 12y agoRight, and some of the genetic variants have even been nailed. Since we can't randomize people to move to Utah (well, the Mormons and Air Force clearly could by randomizing part of their admissions, but it's unlikely they'd cooperate) and since the hyperbaric chambers offer confounds of their own (either people aren't in there long enough to matter or any resulting depression may be due to confinement), the genetics angle seems like the best way forward: collect genomes along with psychiatric status and altitude, and using GCTA, I think, look for an interaction between altitude & depression; if you can establish a genetic contribution to high-altitude but not low-altitude depression, that strongly supports the claim that altitude can cause depression.
- defen 12y agoThe next area to look, then, would be the native peoples of the Andes. They have a different set of high-altitude adaptations, which aren't as good as the Himalayan ones.