Article Summary #7

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2010/204/2
Can Thin Mountain Air Make You Slim?
Recently, twenty obese men have been a part of an experiment that tests whether or not thin mountain air has an effect on metabolism and weight control. These twenty men spent a week on top of Germany’s highest peak to try and record the effects of the altitude. The results were astonishing; all twenty men saw their metabolism speed up, their appetite fade away and pounds of fat melt away. Researchers have their own doubts about this experiment because it lacks a control group- for instance a group of people living at normal altitude under the same living conditions like the same amount of food and water and daily activity. Without a control group it is quite hard to draw a feasible conclusion; however the results that were obtained are surprising nonetheless. One of the reasons that thin air increases metabolism is because mountain air contains less oxygen than air at lower altitudes and this causes the heart to beat faster and causes the body to burn more energy. Gastroenterologist Florian Lippl of the University Hospital of Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich in Germany questioned the technique by wondering how the altitude would affect these men who are so inactive already. She wondered if it would have any affect on them at all due to this fact. The counter argument is that the altitude will be doing most of the activity and that inhaling thin air would be enough of an activity to do the job.