Thesis subject
Whole body intermediate hypoxia: a sensitive stressor for metabolism?
To provide a literature review about one or more questions related to hypoxia and metabolism.
Background: Hypoxia, or low oxygen pressure, can cause severe metabolic adaptations. For instance, when mountaineers are climbing higher and higher, they can become ill due to low oxygen availability.
Questions: What are the mechanisms behind these adaptations when we would expose animals or humans to intermediate levels of oxygen? Which organs will respond in an initial phase, and what do they signal to other organs? Can we measure this adaptation sensitively enough? Is this mechanism based on physiological status like overweight/obese, or insulin resistant versus healthy? Finally, can we use this information to design a kind of tolerance test to measure differences in metabolism more sensitively?
Aims: To provide a literature review about one or more questions related to hypoxia and metabolism (the exact topic(s) will be determined together with the supervisor).