Exercises Fighter Pilot Can Reduce Stroke

Stroke patients and fighter pilots have a similarity that both have experienced a state of hypoxia or lack of oxygen. Therefore, exercise-style fighter pilot is believed to reduce the risk of brain damage due to stroke.

In the fighter pilot, hypoxia caused by oxygen pressure difference and coating time was far away in height. When hypoxic conditions are intolerable, the pilot may suddenly pass out or in the military is called the black out.

Whereas in patients with stroke or heart attack as well, hypoxic conditions occur in certain organs, especially brain and heart because blood flow to where it was obstructed. If it can not be tolerated, this condition can lead to organ damage in a few seconds.

Fortunately the human body given the ability to adapt to hypoxic conditions up to a certain tolerance limits. Tolerance limits on each individual is different, depending on several factors including genetic factors and also through special exercises.

Train for the state of hypoxia have not been done to prevent the risk of organ damage due to hypoxia in heart attack or stroke. But the fighter pilots, training is often done so that the pilot did not have black out easily.

Military health expert, Dr. Henry Mulyawan, SpBS said training for fighter pilots carried out with a tool called the hypobaric chamber. Once every 2 years, the pilot entered into the tool and the pressure is adjusted as if it were in a certain altitude can trigger hypoxia.

"This exercise is only used in military, has never been tested for the sick. But studies in rats have shown that exercise can increase the tolerance to hypoxia," said Dr Henry was appointed after his doctorate at the Faculty of Medicine.

Although hypobaric chamber can not be applied as a preventive in people sick, exercise face hypoxic conditions can also be done in other ways. According to Dr. Henry, a variety of sports including yoga breathing can improve heart and brain tolerance to hypoxic conditions.

In fact, not only for the sick, the athlete who wants to improve her ability to process a limited oxygen can also do a similar exercise. For example like in China, the pool of professional athletes are often trained to swim under the water surface so that the body used to working in conditions of limited oxygen.

Dr. Henry Mulyawan, SpBS sworn in as the biomedical sciences doctoral dissertation titled Adaptation Response Analysis of brain tissue post Hipobarik Intermittent Hypoxia in Rats: Assessment Against Specific Expression of Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-1-alpha.