Recently, a biomedical scientist from Hackney embarked on an adventure to climb Mount Everest as part of a pioneering medical research project called Caudwell Xtreme Everest.
The project aims to place a research team on the summit of Everest that will use the extreme environment as a means of investigating critical illness and human physiology. As a volunteer, Ken will be playing a vital role by allowing the expedition researchers to carry out specific tests on him to study the human response to low oxygen levels (hypoxia).
Dr Denny Levett, who works in the critical care unit at The London Clinic and is one of the key researchers on the Xtreme Everest expedition, explains: “Hypoxia is an almost universal problem in critically ill patients on breathing machines. However, it is difficult to study the effects of low oxygen levels on their own in a hospital setting, as patients have so many other health problems at the same time. Studying healthy individuals with low oxygen levels on the expedition will be invaluable in helping to increase our understanding of the effects of hypoxia and will enable us to use this knowledge when caring for the critically ill patient.”
Ken will be travelling in a group of 16 volunteers, including three colleagues from The London Clinic. The team will have plenty of time to bond on the expedition, as they will spend much of their time trekking together, often for four to five hours a day, staying in tea houses en route and for three nights at Everest base camp in tents.