High altitude is a significant stressor on the human body and carries with it the potential to harm the body and impact one’s ability to survive. The higher the altitude the lower the air pressure makes it challenging to breathe; placing this into its proper perspective; the typical percentages of oxygen are about 30%lower than normal sea level at a higher altitude. Over increased time of oxygen deprivation (hypoxia), the body starts exhibiting the symptoms of severe stress dislodging ones homeostasis: headache, vomiting and distorted vision can even occur. If the body is not returned to normal air pressure levels within a few days death can occur from pulmonary edema or cerebral edema. These symptoms of stress are even more vigorous and create a more certainty of death when increased/decreased altitudes are done to rapidly.

 In the immediate or Short-term adaptations our bodies develop responses to oxygen deprivation; these involuntary responses consist of labored breathing, heart rate increases, and blood pressure increases. This is the body’s way of trying to get more oxygen to the lungs and cells of the body to allow for continuation of mobility and functionality, without enough oxygen the blood can become toxic to organs that it is failing to supply oxygen too. There is also a more rapid evaporation of moisture from your skin and from your lungs; higher altitudes have low humidity which can speed up evaporation. Keeping hydrated in this environment is also very important to keeping your body functioning.

Another good example of human’s ability to adapt is that of athletes training at higher elevations to condition their bodies. This is considered a Facultative adaptation in that the lungs of the athlete actually begin to expand and get larger over time of practicing this training method. In addition, as the lung increase to better adapt to the accumulation of gasses, the red blood cell production increases as well as capillary production. This is done in order to give the athlete an edge in competition on sea level because his/her body is now able to temporarily deal with the buildup of fatigue better, this lasts a few weeks and then returns to normal. One’s ability to adapt to this is remembered by the body and easily attainable again and again. However, this is not a genetic trait that gives this ability its momentum. This gives the athletes a competitive edge, once they return to sea level. The effects of this high altitude training return to normal in just a matter of weeks. 

As for any developmental adaptations those that reside in higher altitudes and choose to make a permanent home in the area have genetically changed over thousands of years to better, permanently adapt. The Himalayas not only have extreme altitude but those who live there have been studied and found to have  two additional oxygen-processing genes that aren’t found in populations of those at normal sea levels. In addition. They also seem to have larger blood vessels in which to quickly carry the oxygenated blood throughout the body, making them more adaptive to this specific environment.

Due to the fact that the Himalayas present an intrigue to those seeking an adventure, people have adapted to the low oxygen levels simply by just carrying oxygen with them on their adventures up the mountains. Had cultural phenomena of being on top, and challenging one’s self not been in place, no one would need to have the oxygen in the first place. However, the need for oxygen supplementation does not end there as it it also used in the cultural need to travel and possibly even visit long lost relatives. People have the need currently to travel into higher altitudes that are insufficient in oxygen, because of this technology and ingenuity have come together to adapt devices to solve the problem.
Some of the benefits to living in higher elevations is the conditioning of the heart, and the previously noted athletic advantage (for those that return to normal level). There are published findings that show people living at higher elevations are less likely to die from certain types of heart disease, because of this and many other reason those living in higher elevations; with the proper adaptations have a longer life expectancy.

In order to better understand the adaptations in higher altitudes, those that are closely related to the Tibetan people that reside in the Himalayas could be studied. However, this would yield you little to compare. When the Tibetan DNA was compared to low-land Chinese and Japanese populations the gene variants associated with the high altitude living were not found in their low altitude living relatives. Race relations are not an adequate replacement to studying adaptations because it does not take into account the environmental factors. Studying the environmental influences while also taking into account those closely related racially, would be a better way; leading to the potential understanding of human variation. One needs to be able to compare and contrast genetics and environmental stimulus to get the whole picture as to why populations vary.