Human Variation and Race Blog

1. High altitude can negatively impact the survival of humans by disturbing homeostasis. The saturation of hemoglobin with oxygen regulates the amount of oxygen in our blood. The higher the altitude, the lower oxyhemoglobin which then makes it harder to breath. This is why it is very hard for humans to adapt to this type of environment. After the human body reaches the height of 7,000 feet above sea level, the saturation of oxyhemoglobin begins to drop. Our bodies developed to have a long-term and short-term adaptation to altitude, which allows the body to moderately balance itself for the lack of oxygen. Although, our body can adapt to the altitude change, the limit our body can take is 26,000 feet.

2. 4 ways in which humans have adapted to stress:

A. Developmental Adaption- This adaption is usually done by athletes who try to train their breathing. Many humans utilize diets, exercises, or tools to help themselves adapt to these high altitudes. To develop the adaptations for high altitude many go on certain diets. For example, people consume large amounts of water to keep one’s skin replenished. As for athletes, they usually exercise at higher altitudes to constantly make more oxyhemoglobin, which allows our bodies to breath more easily in lower altitudes. The different tools used to develop an adaptation can be oxygen tanks. These are usually for higher levels of altitude such as mountain hiking.

B. Cultural Adaption- The cultural adaptations consist of civilizations that developed a higher oxyhemoglobin because of the are they reside. They develop adaptations in their DNA in order to handle the high altitude. This is an example of natural selection. The concept of natural selection is a huge aspect that guides a population to become genetically suitable for low and high elevations. For example, cultures that reside in mountains are adapted to high altitudes just like how those that reside in lower altitude areas have lower levels of oxyhemoglobin, which makes it harder to breath on a mountain.

C. Short Term Adaption- If one is not yet adapted to high altitudes and they immediately sense high altitudes, short term adaptation occurs. The idea of short term adaptation is that our bodies sense high doses of oxygen in a short amount of time in which there will be an increase in the breathing rate which is also known as hyperventilation.

D. Facultative adaption- A facultative adaption to high altitude is the increase in the body’s red blood cell count. When our bodies reach a high altitude, the red blood cells increase in order to carry oxygen more efficiently throughout the body. Not only does the red blood cells increase but our lungs also increase in size to transfer oxygen and carbon dioxide at a more consistent and faster rate.

3. There are many various benefits of understanding our body development due to high altitude. These include how our bodies carry various amount of oxyhemoglobin and how the amount changes to match the altitude in which our bodies are handling. It is good to know the proper ways to adapt to these intense situations whilst understanding what happens to our bodies. For example, it is beneficial to know the proper exercises needed to be done to go on a mountain hike in order to regulate breathing.

4. I believe that you cannot use race to understand the variation of adaptions listed in number two. The main reason I don’t believe this is because race is just our physical appearance such as skin color, eye color, hair color, bone structure, etc. Race does not have a direct connection with the way our bodies adapt to high altitudes. The study of environmental influences on adaptation is a better way to understand human variation rather than race. This is because environmental influences on adaptations describe the setting they are placed in which makes a big influence with how our bodies react to altitudes. This way it is determined by our exposure with certain altitudes rather than how we look. I feel like a better question to ask is “How would you use Ethnicity …” because ethnicity at least relates to cultural factors and these cultural factors may include ancestors that can handle high altitudes.