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Effect of Altitude and Diet on Hematopoiesis and Serum Cholesterol¹

Home Economics Division, University of Wyoming, Laramie²

Data were collected on dietary, physical, and blood factors of 70 healthy women over 60 years of age who had lived in Albany County, Wyoming, for at least two years. The county is 7200 feet above sea level and is in a geographical area different from San Mateo County, California, at sea level. The study paralleled a similar one conducted in San Mateo County, California, in 1949 by Gillum and Morgan ('55) and by Gillum et al., ('55).

It was found that the total mean value for serum cholesterol was higher in the Wyoming women than in the California women. The women in the Wyoming study consumed a larger percentage of total fat in the form of animal fat. More than twice the percentage of women in the Wyoming study were overweight than in the California survey. The hematocrits, sedimentation rates, and hemoglobins of the Wyoming women were greater than those of the California women.

Significant partial correlation coefficients are reported between age and total serum cholesterol, hemoglobin and total serum cholesterol, and hemoglobin and percentage of free serum cholesterol. A significant simple correlation coefficient was found between daily cholesterol intake and total serum cholesterol; hemoglobin was found to be significantly correlated with hematocrit, sedimentation rate, age, daily cholesterol intake, and total serum cholesterol.

The results of the study indicate that altitude does have an effect upon the factors considered. The theory is proposed that increase in hemoglobin, coinciding with increase in red cell count, which occurs at high altitude, is accompanied by an increase in degenerate "ghost" cells which contribute cholesterol to the serum. It is suggested that the increase in serum cholesterol which occurs with increase in age may be due to hematopoietic changes which occur with age and which resemble those changes found with increase in altitude.

² This study was a phase of the Western Regional Research Project W-44 on Cholesterol and W-4 on Nutritional Status of the Aging, financed in part by the U. S. Department of Agriculture through funds appropriated under the Research and Marketing Act of 1946. It was done with the cooperation of the Albany County Medical Society and Ivinson Memorial Hospital.

Manuscript received 3 September 1957.