What Happens to the Human Body on Top of Everest

Lowland climbers undergo temporary physiological changes when ascending to high altitude, spending weeks or months allowing their bodies to adjust before attempting summit ascents like Mount Everest, which typically takes 5 to 6 days from South Base Camp.

Elite high-altitude climbers including Reinhold Messner demonstrate elevated muscle capillary density, with 1980s research revealing concentrations 40% above normal active non-athletes. Sherpa populations show similar enhancements as part of their permanent high-altitude adaptations.

Sherpa skeletal muscle demonstrates unique metabolic preferences, favoring carbohydrate oxidation over fat metabolism especially under hypoxic conditions, contrasting with typical lowlander patterns where fat provides the primary fuel source during rest and moderate activity.

Lowlanders ascending to high altitude accumulate damaging free radicals as their bodies struggle with oxygen deprivation, while Sherpa populations show no sudden increase in these reactive molecules despite identical hypoxic exposure, demonstrating superior cellular protection mechanisms.

Sherpa populations maintain lower hemoglobin concentrations at high altitude compared to acclimatizing lowlanders, presenting a counterintuitive adaptation where less oxygen-carrying capacity produces better performance outcomes through prevention of chronic mountain illness.

High-altitude climbers and mountaineers experience oxygen deprivation when ascending peaks like Mount Everest, where barometric pressure drops from sea level’s 101 kilopascals to just 32 kilopascals at the summit.

Intensive care patients with heart failure or cancer face cellular hypoxia where tissues cannot properly utilize oxygen despite supplemental delivery, creating a clinical challenge that researchers hope to address by understanding Sherpa adaptations to high-altitude oxygen deprivation.

Sherpa populations possess mitochondria with enhanced efficiency for converting oxygen into ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the cellular energy currency. This adaptation distinguishes them from lowlanders whose mitochondrial function deteriorates under hypoxic stress.

High-altitude researchers discovered oxygen transport limitations through 1985 experiments placing eight male volunteers in altitude chambers for 40 days, progressively dropping pressure from sea level (101 kPa) to Everest summit (32 kPa) to study chronic hypoxia tolerance.

Sherpa populations maintain elevated phosphocreatine levels at high altitude while lowlanders experience dramatic depletion of these crucial energy reserves during altitude exposure, demonstrating a fundamental metabolic difference between adapted and non-adapted populations.

Sherpa people, an ethnic group who left the Tibetan Plateau 600 years ago and settled in Nepal, have developed permanent physiological adaptations to high-altitude environments through generational selection. Notable mountaineers include Tenzing Norgay (first Everest summit with Edmund Hillary in 1953) and Babu Cheri Sherpa (21-hour summit record).