Other physiological changes at high altitude that deserve to be explored, because of their general biological relevance, include the increased production of red blood cells and its related mechanisms, the production of hypoxia-related proteins and metabolic alterations all associated to the hypoxic stimulus.
Finally, climatic features of high altitude have to be considered for the interpretation of biological information. These features include the decrease in temperature, atmospheric pressure, air density, water vapour, carbon dioxide, and impurities, an elevated and variable exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Mountains are also among the windiest places on earth. Microclimate conditions are another relevant factor – great environmental contrasts occur within short distances and short time-spans as a result of the diverse topography and highly variable nature of the energy and moisture fluxes within the system. Such extreme meteorological conditions combined with an important intra-daily and day-to-day weather variability strongly influence psychophysical and physiological performances with serious health impacts on trekkers and alpinists.
On such a background, the general aims of the project can be summarized as follows:

a) to investigate the cardiovascular, neural, endocrine, metabolic, hematologic and molecular effects of hypobaric hypoxia at extreme altitude at various stages of adaptation
b) to study the effect of angiotensin II receptor blockade (by telmisartan) on the cardiovascular, respiratory, neural and metabolic responses to high altitude hypobaric hypoxia
c) to evaluate the acute physiological effects of nonpharmacological interventions potentially useful for the treatment not only of acute mountain sickness but also of chronic clinical conditions with hypoxemia, including continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and controlled slow breathing (SlowB)
d) to explore the relationship between changes in biological parameters and changes in meteorological parameters such as temperature, humidity and UV radiation exposure. Aims of this subproject will also be to monitor/forecast weather and microclimatic variables near the ground at different altitude, and to predict the physical/physiological performance in those environments by the assessments of thermal balances during different physical activities.