Himalayan yak holds the key to lowoxygen survival
The Himalayan cousin of the common cow holds the key to survival in cities where pollutants steal your oxygen.
Scientists at the National Research Centre on Yak (NRC-Y) are close to cracking the signature gene of the yak, the only animal comfortable in sub-zero conditions and at altitudes where oxygen level is 40% less than in the plains.
NRC-Y, an Indian Council of Agriculture Research institute, was established in 1989 at Arunachal Pradesh’s Dirang, located 327km west of Itanagar. It focuses on the yak and the polyandrous brokpas, or yak farmers, along India’s Himalayan belt. The average oxygen content in air at sea level is 20% — almost half than in the age of dinosaurs — but level in polluted cities is under 15%. The outcome of the study, researchers say, will be vital when oxygen levels fall below 12%. The yak can survive in 11%. “Researchers in the West, envisaging a significant drop in ambient oxygen in future, found that cats and mice brought up on a diet of yak milk survive in low-oxygen lab conditions,” senior scientist Pranab Jyoti Das said.
“We began working on the yak’s genomic structure to find out what makes it survive extreme conditions. We also have a long-term goal of finding the nutrients of yak’s milk that will help people survive in low oxygen,” Das said.
The research, for the time being, is focused on adding yak milk to the diagnostic process for treating high-altitude sickness and hypoxia, a complication due to deficiency in amount of oxygen reaching the tissues in a human body.
NRC-Y researches believe further refinement in the study can insure people against asphyxiation or suffocation in scenarios such as the post-Diwali smog in Delhi.
The belief comes from the diet of the nomadic brokpas, who move with their herd of yaks at altitudes beyond 10,000ft. “Yak’s milk and milk products sustain brokpas,” NRC-Y director SM Deb said.
The researchers have also factored in global studies on Tibetans, revealing the highlanders have developed a special protein-producing gene that keep them at ease in the Himalayan terrain.