Does living in high altitude affect pathogens, inside and outside the body?

[TruffleGnocchi]

I read that statistically, high altitude living is correlated with a decreased risk of cancer by 14% for each 1000 meters. And also lower risk of heart disease. Initial risk for people that have heart disease already and move up to higher altitudes when they are not adapted, but statistically lower risk.

I wonder if this could also have to do with pathogens in the body. I saw videos saying that many of the age-related diseases are at the end caused by pathogens, including heart disease, cancer, neurological problems. Obviously younger people dont have these problems and are exposed to the same pathogens so cannot be the main cause. One paper in Nature said they found antibodies for fungus in the brain of dementia patients, Im not sure if it said alzheimers specifically or just dementia.
Someone proposed a theory that aging is a mechanism to prevent pathogen spread among the species. They did some very simplistic simulations with dots representing organisms, and the organisms had a certain infection chance, and the organisms that had built in aging programatically survived (the species didnt go extinct), the immortal organisms got extinct eventually by infection. That is if infection rate was set high enough in the "simulation". Not convincing simulation at all because very few factors were put into it, nothing like real events but interesting idea, that aging is a mechanism, rather than an error or weak point. They didnt give any mechanism on how this happens or solution to overcome it, just proposed the idea.

I sometimes get heavy clogged up airways and especially clogged nose, that feel almost swollen a bit, when Im in my toxic home + I eat bad stuff for a while, especially if I sleep long enough then when I wake up Im clogged up a lot. If Im in good condition I can tolerate more of the bad stuff in my house. I noticed that if I go to even just a bit higher altitude (+400-500meters or 1600 feet), where the air is noticeably better, my lungs recover quicker than down in the city. I dont know if this is because of the altitude or just the air is better. Could be placebo because the air feels nicer. Took a short nap on top of a peak on some hill a few days ago, very refreshing, what naps should be like.

Are there any papers showing cause or correlation that living in high altitude is effective against pathogens in the body, or is there less pathogens present in the high-altitude environment? Or any mechanism of the high-altitude physiology being protective against infection?

There is this paper on decreased Covid-19 infection rate and increased survival rate among the infected that live in high-altitude, world-wide statistics. Dont think it proves causation at all but interesting:

Does the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 virus decrease at high-altitude?​

Our epidemiological analysis of the Covid-19 pandemic clearly indicates a decrease of prevalence and impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection in populations living at altitude of above 3,000 masl.

A high-altitude environment is characterized by drastic changes in temperature between night and day, air dryness, and high levels of ultraviolet (UV) light radiation. In particular UV light radiation A (UVA) and B (UVB) are well known to be capable of producing alterations in the molecular bonds of the DNA and RNA, and thus UV radiation at high-altitude may act as a natural sanitizer. In relation to SARS-CoV-2, while complete disinfection cannot be achieved by UVA and UVB, these radiations should shorten the half-life of any given virus. Finally, due to the lower density of air and greater distance between molecules at high-altitude, the size of the airborne virus inoculum must be smaller than at sea level.

Although the data of the present study suggest a strongly decreased pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 in high-altitude, there is yet no evidence of an underlying physiological mechanisms that could affect to severity of infection. However, there is a positive correlation between the infection rate of SARS-CoV-1 and ACE2 in pulmonary epithelial cells. Importantly both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 bind to ACE2, and thus a putative decrease of ACE2 expression in pulmonary endothelia in high-altitude inhabitant could represent a physiological protective for the severe and often lethal pulmonary edema.

Furthermore, additional physiological acclimatization of high-altitude living associated with increased ventilation, augmented arterial oxygen transport, and higher tissue oxygenation, mainly (but not exclusively) mediated by erythropoietin could be explored for potential therapy of acute respiratory distress associated with COVID-19.

--------------------------
Also wonder how much altitude increase is still beneficial overall, before it becomes a detriment. The Tibetans are at 4000m according to this paper. So if "-14% cancer risk reduction per 1000m altitude increase" statement is correct, they should have 56% reduced risk of cancer, statistically speaking.

 

[Highserotonin90]

@TruffleGnocchi Very interesting, just got back after a week at 1300 meters above sea level. The air quality statistics compared to my home were noticeably better with almost no PM2.5… my airways were also clear and not clogged. We must also consider the increase in CO2 that Peat has often spoken of....

 

[TheSir]

Increasing co2 makes the body much less hospitable to pathogens by making everything in the body work more efficiently. There is no known upper ceiling to the effect, so yes living even higher, or breathing even less, will offer even more benefits