Resort Studies the Flip Side of Rocky Mountain High : Health: One of four visitors to Colorado mountains is afflicted by altitude sickness. Taking a few days to reach higher ground is effective prevention, doctors say.

Altitude sickness afflicts one of four visitors to Colorado’s mountains. Its effects range from nausea and headaches to death, according to a study at this Rocky Mountain resort.

One victim was Howard Shapiro, a 40-year-old New York City lawyer. He flew from Newark, N.J., on a Monday morning in February, arrived in Denver about noon and drove to this ski resort at above 9,000 feet altitude.

“I became very dizzy, lightheaded. At the onset I was short of breath, but that seemed to abate pretty quickly. The headache went from mild to severe . . . and then the constant vomiting,” Shapiro said.

“At some point in time, dying seemed the lesser of two evils,” he said.

In the morning, at the resort’s Snake River Health Center, he was asked to participate in an experimental program. He was placed in a red Gamow bag, which resembles a backpacker’s tube tent. Air pressure in the bag is increased.

“We take him down to higher pressure and lower altitude. It’s a simulated drop from Keystone’s 9,300 feet to about 4,300 feet,” said University of Colorado graduate student Jim Kasic, who is involved in the study by the Colorado Altitude Research Institute based at the clinic.

In two hours, Shapiro could eat and drink again.

Bengtake Jaurin, 35, a microbiologist from Umea, Sweden, complained of the same symptoms after arriving at Frisco, altitude 9,036 feet. He went to his room and was found dead the next morning, Jan. 19. An autopsy showed he died of respiratory failure due to high-altitude pulmonary edema, an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the lungs.

“The problem involves dozens of millions of people--13 million visitors to Colorado alone each year,” said Dr. Charles Houston, founder of the institute.

Altitude sickness has been found to afflict 23% of those surveyed so far, he said.

“It doesn’t mean they’re incapacitated,” said Houston, of Burlington, Vt. “But with simple measures, we think we can stop at least a dozen preventable deaths a year from altitude sickness in Colorado. Make that 12 to 20 deaths that are preventable,” Houston said.

The institute’s study, staffed by graduate students and supervised by doctor-board members of the nonprofit Snake River Health Clinic, began last June. About 1,700 adults and teen-agers have been interviewed at Keystone ski resort so far.

“No one has looked at the 8,000-to-10,000-foot level and Mr. and Mrs. Joe Public, how well or how poorly they tolerate altitude, particularly if they have heart or lung disease,” Houston said.

He estimated the clinic’s research could save each of the state’s major ski resorts $3 million to $5 million a year in lost income and litigation. He said losses to the state’s ski industry because of high-altitude sickness approach $55 million a season.

Cathy Kruzic, spokeswoman for Colorado Ski Country USA, said the figures would be hard to verify. During a recent meeting, she asked chief executive officers from the state’s ski areas about the estimates.

“They were extremely surprised by that figure and would certainly want additional information to qualify those numbers because it’s not something that has been of major concern in terms of lost revenues to the areas,” Kruzic said.

Houston, 76, began research on altitude while a mountain climber in the Himalayas in the 1930s and 1940s and with the Navy during World War II.

Houston said altitude sickness is a mixture of problems that often occur together:

* Acute mountain sickness, which includes headache, nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, fatigue and sleep disturbance.

* High-altitude pulmonary edema, water accumulation in the lungs that can be fatal.

* High-altitude cerebral edema, in which water accumulates on the brain. It also can be fatal.

Symptoms can be treated with medication, but the disease can be prevented, Houston said.

“Prevention is to take a couple of days to get here, spend a couple days in Denver (at mile-high altitude) and then come on up here” to 9,300 feet, he said.

Houston explained what happens to the body within an hour of arriving at a high altitude:

First, breaths come deeper and faster. Second, the heart beats faster and puts out more blood per stroke. Third, bone marrow begins making more red blood cells to carry oxygen.

In addition, body cells undergo enzyme changes, and the kidneys excrete more urine to get rid of excess bicarbonate. “There is something going on in just about every organ” as the body tries to adjust, he said.

Clinic medical director Dick Nicholas said acclimatization generally takes a night at an intermediate altitude.

“We get people taking the all-night bus from Kansas City. They get on the bus Thursday afternoon and get off here Friday. That’s not enough time for most,” Nicholas said.