Hypoxia literally means "a deficiency in oxygen." It can refer to:

• Hypoxia (medical), a shortage of oxygen in the body. Hypoxaemia is the reduction of oxygen specifically in the blood; anoxia is when there is no oxygen available at all.
  • Environmental hypoxia, a condition in high altitudes such as mountains where the reduced partial pressure of oxygen available leads to hypoxia.
  • Ischemia, a restriction in blood supply (and therefore oxygen supply) to an organ or section of the body, generally due to constriction or blocking of blood vessels.
• Hypoxia (environmental) or oxygen depletion, a reduced concentration of dissolved oxygen in a water body leading to stress and death in aquatic organisms.
  • Dead zone (ecology), or hypoxic zones, hypoxic areas in the world's oceans.
  • Anoxic sea water, a condition of abnormally low levels of oxygen in the sea.
  • Oxygen minimum zone, the depth in the sea at which the dissolved oxygen level is lowest, or most hypoxic.

In popular culture

• Hypoxia is a song on the album Spheres 2 by Delerium
• Hypoxia is a death metal band in Santa Rosa, California

See also

• Oxygen saturation, a relative measure of the oxygen dissolved or carried in a medium; a measure of the severity of hypoxic conditions.
• Oxygen toxicity (hyperoxia), the opposite condition of hypoxia, an excess of oxygen in body tissues.
• Time of Useful Consciousness, a measure of how quickly hypoxia renders a person incapable of normal thought.
• Respiratory Acidosis, a decrease in physiological pH due to hypoventilation or decrease in gas exchange by alveoli

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Hypoxia"