People who dared to climb Mount Everest often do so to establish a climbing feat, but a group of climbers traversed more than 8,000 meters high for a research study that sought to understand what causes people to acquire diabetes.
Mount Everest, being the world's highest mountain, has a seemingly unconquerable peak and an inhospitable environment that does not appear conducive for research studies, but a group of researchers from the United Kingdom hoped that the high altitude and the low oxygen levels on the summit would allow them to better understand how low oxygen conditions, otherwise known as hypoxia, may be associated with insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance happens when the cells of the body do not respond to insulin, the hormone that regulates the amount of sugar in the blood, which could lead to the development of type-2 diabetes, a chronic disease characterized by high sugar levels in the blood.
The scientific expedition at Mount Everest, which took place in 2007, involved 24 individuals who were checked for changes in their body weight, blood sugar control and signs of inflammation.
Eight of the participants climbed to the summit at 8,848 meters while the others stayed at the base camp, which was at an altitude of 5,300 meters. Measurements were taken for members in each group at weeks six and eight of the expedition.
The researchers found an association between increased insulin-resistance markers following sustained exposure to hypoxia at high altitude and an increase in markers of inflammation and oxidative stress, which plays a major role in the development of diabetes.
"Sustained hypoxemia is associated with insulin resistance, whose magnitude correlates with the degree of oxidative stress and inflammation," the researchers reported in their research article published in the journal PLoS One on April 14.
Study researcher Daniel Martin, from the University College London's Institute of Child Health, said that the results of the study provided them with unique perspective on insulin resistance and diabetes.
"These exciting results give us a unique insight into the possible mechanism of insulin resistance in diabetes, and provide some clues as to where we should be thinking about focusing further research on novel treatments for this disease," Martin told HealthDay.
