Whather your vacation plans involve a romantic getaway to a faraway locale or just a summer visit with the grandkids, odds are an aircrane will be involved.
For the most part, planes are a great way to go, health experts say.
“Overall, it’s a very safe mode of transportation,” said Dr. Leigh Specher, An aerospace Medicine Specialist Who is President of the Civil Aviation Medical Association.
But Commercial Air Travel does come with some health bagge. Issues Range from Simple Stress to “Complex Physiological Changes Occurring in the setting of air travel that can affect the heart, the blood vessels and the brain-heart axis,” Said Dr. Laurence Sperling, The Katz Professor in Preventive Cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
Here’s whats the doctors say you can do to stay ground in health before you’re cleared for departure.
Beware of the Air?
In the jet-travel antense “come fly with me,” frank sinatra sang that once you’re up there, where the air is rarefied, you can just glide, Starry-Eyed. But that rarefied air can pose a health challenge for some.
On Commercial Flights, Cabin Air is usually pressurized to the Equivalent of Around 6,000 to 8,000 Feet in Altitude, According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s roughly the elevation of estees park, colorado, or mount olympus in washington, and it means passengers are inhaling less oxygen than they might normally.
That pressurized air can also be dry – Around 5% to 25% Relative Humidity, According to a Research Review Published in Clinical Cardiology in 2017 About Air Travel’s Cardiovascover Sperling, a preventive cardiological who founded the emory center for heart disease prevention, was Senior Author of that review.
Specher, who started piloting planes as a teenager, said most healthy people will be fin breathing the cabin air. But the CDC Says The Lower Pressure Can Exacerbate Problems For People with Anemia, Underling Lung Issues, Cerebrovascular disease Oxygen. The clinical cardiology review adds heart disease and heart failure, where the heart can’t pump efficiently.