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Peru High-Altitude Adaptations
As with the Himalayan mountains, the Andes impose
severe
conditions and many limitations on life. Consequently,
Andean
people are physically adapted to the heights in special
ways. In
contrast to persons born and raised at sea level, those
living at
Andean altitudes 2,500 meters or more above sea level have
as
much as 25 percent more blood that is more viscous and
richer in
red cells, a heart that is proportionately larger, and
specially
adapted, larger lungs, with an enhanced capacity to take
in
oxygen from the rare atmosphere. Biological adaptations
have
permitted the native highlanders to work efficiently and
survive
successfully in the Andean altitudes for 20,000 years.
The first important scientific research on
high-altitude
biology was undertaken by the Peruvian physician-scientist
Carlos
Monge Medrano in the 1920s. He showed that coca-leaf
chewing
played a role in aiding the metabolism in high-altitude
populations. More recent studies have shown that coca
chewing
significantly aids in metabolizing high carbohydrate foods
like
potatoes, yucca, and corn, which are traditional staples
in the
Andean region, thus providing the chewer with more rapid
energy
input from his meals. Supposed narcotic effects of
coca-leaf
chewing are nil because enzymes in the mouth convert coca
into
atropine-like substances, unlike those involved in
cocaine.
Anthropologists Catherine Allen and Enrique Mayer have
also
demonstrated the central role traditional coca use plays
in
Andean communities as a medicine, ritual substance, and an
element in economic and social affairs.
Data as of September 1992
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