Mediterranean diet mitigates acute mountain sickness

Agazzi G. C., Valoti P., Bastiani L., Denoth F., Pratali Ll., D'Angelo G., Carrara B., Parigi G. B., Malanninom., Spinelli A., Calderoli A., Orizio L., Giardini G., Salvetti O., Moroni D., Martinelli M., Mrakic Sposta S.

Acute Mountain Sickness  Mediterranean Diet  Statistics  Survey 

A pilot study was conducted in the framework of the Save the Mountains initiative, an education and sustainability project, promoted by Italian Alpine Club of Bergamo, Bergamo section of the National Alpine Association, Province of Bergamo, Observatory for the Bergamasque Mountains and Alpine and Speleological Rescue. As a part of this study, an anonymous online questionnaire was designed and prepared, collecting lifestyle information (eating habits, alcohol, tobacco, sleep, exercise) of the mountaineers in order to recommend specific measures useful for staying in mountain areas and for preventing individual risk factors related to lifestyle and Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS): http://altamontagna.isti.cnr.it:8080/Stiledivita/. The study will continue the collection of questionnaire responses until at least the end of Summer 2021; at the time of writing (February 2021), 804 questionnaire responses were already collected and analyzed. The initial sample refers to the people who attended mountain huts in the Orobie Alps; then the online questionnaire form was publicly extended to other regions. About 99% of the interviewed people are Italian; the rest are Swiss, Polish, British and French people. Mean age is 48 years(+/-15), 62% males and 38% females. Only 8.8% of them answered they suffered from altitude sickness, but self-reported Lake Louise Score (LLS) classified the 21.3% of people with Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), light AMS 15,4% and severe AMS 5,8% (To assess AMS the original LLS questionnaire was used: AMS is classified as severe when a headache is present and the LLS is greater than 5, it is instead light when there is a headache and the LLS is between 3 and 5, else is normal). The Mediterranean Diet's adherence, collected as the frequency of food items consumption, was assessed by the MEDI-LITE score, a validated questionnaire, ranging from 0 to 13. In this sample, a median score of 8 was found, while the 25th percentile corresponds to a score lower than 6 and the 75th percentile to a score greater than 9. The 14% of the sample resulted in being not adherent to the Mediterranean diet, the 51% was in the mean, the 35% was adherent. This study confirms that the predisposing factor most associated with the AMS is "having had the same episode in the past" (OR 2.50, CI 1.88/3.13), having sleep disturbs (OR 1.29, CI 1.03 /1.55), age (OR -0.03, CI -0.35/-0.02). Moreover, it underlines that lifestyle is important with respect to risk to develop the AMS: actually, despite the structural limitations of surveys, this study pointed out that lifestyle contributes to mitigating the risk of developing the AMS (Mediterranean diet score OR - 0.34, CI -0.64 -> - 0.55). Gender, smoke and high physical activity are instead not significant. Future studies should investigate more deeply how lifestyle can change the impact on high altitude diseases.

Source: ISMM2021 - Virtual XIII World Congress on mountain medicine, Online Conference, June 14-16, 2021