High Altitude Hypoxia Stressor Associated Diseases and Precision Medicine

Hypoxia is a condition wherein an organism, a cell or a region of an organ does not receive adequate levels of oxygen to carry out normal life processes. The ability to sense oxygen levels and respond appropriately is termed “oxygen sensing” which might be used in certain cases to describe the biological effects of hypoxia. Hypoxia is an important facet involved in multiple diseases. Ranging from highaltitude pulmonary edema to cancer, oxygen-sensing molecular networks are crucial for survival and have a notable impact on human health systems. The type, duration, and intensity of hypoxic episodes have been found to have a multitude of effects ranging from beneficial to harmful in diverse conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes and obstructive sleep apnea. A very important niche of hypoxia is the study of environmental stressors also called high-altitude hypoxia. High-altitude hypoxia holds multiple molecular similarities with diabetes, cancer, obesity, and other diseases like COPD. In addition, unregulated exposure to hypobaric hypoxia is known to directly cause high-altitude illnesses like HAPE/HACE. An interesting facet of high-altitude hypoxia is the ability of the molecular and physiological systems to acclimatize to the high altitude. This acclimatization is known to prevent the occurrence of high-altitude illnesses. This review highlights the previous studies to build a framework that elucidates the occurrence of hypobaric hypoxia, its socio-economic impact, molecular underpinnings, and correlation with inflammation, cancer, diabetes, obesity and possible therapeutic approaches to these diseases.