Variations in the lung size of children in Papua New Guinea: genetic and environmental factors

In Papua New Guinea, rural village children of both sexes living in the highlands (1500–2000 m) were found to have mean values of forced vital capacity 27 per cent greater than children at sea level. Urban children with an apparently lower level of habitual activity had a lung size similar to that of rural children living at the same altitude. In a number of healthy children of coastal parents reared in the highlands and of highland parents reared on the coast, the size of the lung was, in general, appropriate for the altitude rather than for the parentage. These findings suggest that the highland-coastal difference is probably environmental rather than genetic in origin.