Manuscript Topics

High altitudes, defined as elevations above 2500 m, are home to more than 80 million people worldwide. In addition, millions of workers, traders, students, mountaineers, and skiers visit these altitudes annually. For example, within one year, more than 15 million tourists were reported to travel to the high-altitude region of Lhasa (about 3600 m) in Tibet alone. There are at least 7 airports in the world that are situated above 4000 m. While high-altitude dwellers are chronically exposed to altitude, visitors only experience exposure for hours to weeks (or months).
Barometric pressure and related partial pressure of oxygen (pO₂) decreases with increasing altitude, and is almost halved at 5000 m. Despite considerable changes in ambient temperature (declines by about 6.5°C per 1000 m) and global irradiation (increases by about 8% per 1000 m), the drop in pO₂ (hypoxia) is the most important stimulus for the induction of acclimatization (in the short term, days to weeks) or adaptation (in the long term, generations) to high altitude. Additionally, genetic aspects, sociocultural, socioeconomic, and lifestyle factors may all impact health and the risk of disease development of people living at different altitudes. Whereas beneficial effects on health and longevity have been reported from observations at moderate altitudes (≤ 2500 m), such effects (perhaps with the exception of cardiovascular diseases) are less clear for people living at higher altitudes (> 2500 m). Sojourns to high altitudes are associated with the risk of developing high-altitude illnesses like acute mountain sickness, high-altitude cerebral (HACE), and pulmonary edema (HAPE). On the other hand, people may benefit from such sojourns due to low allergen concentrations at high altitudes, lower ambient temperatures, especially during heat waves in the cities at low altitudes, or because of hypoxia conditioning effects.
This Special Issue will deal with preventive and deleterious health effects of living or sojourning at high altitudes (> 2500 m) with a special focus on disentangling the complex interactions between various contributing factors (environmental, sociocultural, socioeconomic, and individual lifestyle). Researchers are invited to submit manuscripts addressing these fascinating challenges in the form of original research papers, review articles, commentaries, expert opinions, and commentaries. We are also pleased to consider mechanistic (molecular and physiological) aspects as long as they relate to the Special Issue topic.

Keywords: high altitude; health, disease; lifestyle; hypoxia; genetics; behavior

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