Video Post by: Andreas Moritz
Hi, this is question from someone who is wondering if I have any recommendations to avoid or to balance altitude sickness. Many people who are going to places like Peru or to higher regions of mountains where the air is thinner, that means it has less oxygen, and henceforth suffer from altitude sickness which can be severe headaches, shortness of breath, can be poor digestion, many of the functions in the body are diminished when there is not enough oxygen going through the system and reaching the cells.
So, there are a number of things that I suggest in countries that are used to high altitudes and in Peru, for example, I have been there, they will offer you the traditional drink, the cocoa tea that is very, very effective in improving the circulation of blood so that enough oxygen is delivered to the cells.
When I traveled to Peru ten years ago I used that myself and within a day I was basically fine, I didn’t have any negative experiences, however, I noticed that those traveler friends of mine, who were eating meat, they took more than a week to recover, and some never recovered from altitude sickness and they only felt better when we went back down to lower altitudes.
I have been a vegetarian for 40 years and I had really no problem of digesting, and my wife the same. We are both vegetarians, so, the advices, and I have given that advice to others who were meat eaters and I told them to stop eating any animal products for at least 4 to 5 days and then they would also rapidly recover from the altitude sickness.
The reason why the meat or heavy foods are so detrimental for the system when you travel to high altitudes is because the digestive system requires most oxygen, besides the brain, than any other part of the body. And in order to digest food, it really uses up a lot of energy and so, so much of oxygen and glucose get used up by the digestive system and there is just not enough around.
If you eat a lot of meat that requires high energy, amount of energy, to process those heavier foods, then there is not much left for other functions in the body. So these people would feel very low in energy and depleted, and it’s not much fun, even if you go to really beautiful places, it is not fun to drag yourself along because you don’t have enough energy, or if you have splitting headaches.
So I wholeheartedly recommend to do that, avoid any animal products, eat lots of vegetables, drink the cocoa tea, some grain foods, some beans are fine, seeds, salads, fruit, these are all wonderful foods to have when you go into high altitude regions and get, if possible, sun exposure that helps to make your transition to more efficient circulation during those months or weeks that you are living in high altitudes.
UV radiation in high altitudes is very beneficial for keeping infection rates low and to make sure that the immune system stays strong and can protect itself from any bacteria that potentially could cause infections. Because infection can be, infection rates are higher when people move into high altitudes and the water doesn’t boil as well, so any germs that might be in the water will not be killed so you have more than usual numbers of bacteria coming into the body. Again, food cannot be cooked as well and as fast as in lower altitudes.
So once again, keeping the immune system strong is your best bet, otherwise you may go through infections, parasitic infections, bacterial infections, in high altitudes
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