Culture & Heritage

Sherpas Aren't Just Acclimatized to Everest — Their DNA Is Borrowed From an Extinct Human Species

A gene that lets Sherpas thrive on thin air did not evolve in modern humans at all. It came from the Denisovans, tens of thousands of years ago.

By Maya Rai · Aug 25, 2026

Put a fit foreign trekker and a Sherpa mountain guide side by side at 5,364m, the altitude of Everest Base Camp, and measure their blood. The trekker's body is often panicking, pumping out extra red blood cells to compensate for the thin air, thickening the…

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Where the gene came from

The discovery, mapped by geneticists studying Tibetan and Sherpa populations and confirmed in a wider Himalaya-spanning study, centres on a roughly 32,700-letter stretch of DNA within the EPAS1 gene — a gene that controls how the body senses and responds to…

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Why this matters more than a fun fact

For a lowlander, the body's first response to thin air is to manufacture more red blood cells, thickening the blood to carry more oxygen per litre. It works, up to a point — but overdo it and the blood becomes sluggish, raising the risk of clots and the…

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The higher they live, the more they carry

The pattern is not random. Across Himalayan populations, researchers found the frequency of the gene variant tracks almost exactly with how high up a group has lived for generations — a statistical correlation described as among the strongest ever measured…

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What this means for trekkers

What this means for trekkers You cannot train, supplement or will your way into Sherpa physiology — the adaptation took millennia and it is genetic, not acquired. What you can do is respect the mountain the way it deserves: ascend slowly, build in rest days…

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