Acute mountain sickness susceptibility, fitness and hypoxic ventilatory response.

In a party of 17 subjects who travelled together to 4,500 m, hypoxic ventilatory response (HVR) and maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max) were measured before departure. HVR was measured under constant and varying alveolar carbon dioxide tension (PACO2) conditions. VO2max was measured by both standard expired gas collection technique on a treadmill and using the "shuttle run" technique. On arrival at altitude, symptoms of acute mountain sickness (AMS) were scored daily for three days. There were no cases of severe AMS but half of the party had mild to moderate degrees of AMS. There was no correlation between AMS scores and HVR by either method of measurement or with VO2max measured by either method of measurement or with VO2max measured by treadmill or shuttle run.