ABSTRACT
This book argues that hypoxia can be tolerated by numerous species; and even man’s tolerance to hypoxia may be enhanced if adaptive mechanisms of other species can be identified and made applicable to human biology. In turn, clinical investigators and physicians may find it difficult to sort through details of the in-depth scientific contributions from such diverse disciplines as are represented here to see what, if anything, may be transferable to medical practice. To bring these concepts and groups together, we thought it advantageous to lay caution aside and systematically review the main thematic contributions to this volume with one additional goal: to speculate on the transferability of basic research in hypoxia tolerance to clinical medicine. A central issue of these chapters is that problems of hypoxia or anoxia arise because of undesirable features of anaerobic metabolism: its ATP yield is low, its fuel use is inefficient, and it is self-polluting, generating undesirable and potentially noxious end products.
