Some science behind the scenes
Hypoxia side-effects
The brain damage that results from hypoxia is well known. Brain tissue ceases to function if deprived of oxygen for more than 60 to 90 seconds and after approximately three hours, will suffer irreversible injury possibly leading to death of the tissue.
But depriving any organ of oxygen can damage it, for example, it can cause blindness………….
Cortical blindness following hypoxia during cardiac arrest - Kam CA, Yoong FF, Ganendran A.
Two patients with cortical blindness following hypoxic episodes are reported. The characteristics of the syndrome are described. Attention is drawn to the lack of awareness of this complication of hypoxia. PMID: 665992
It can damage the heart…………………..
Pathophysiology and clinical effects of chronic hypoxia - Pierson DJ.; Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
Hypoxia exists when there is a reduced amount of oxygen in the tissues of the body. Hypoxemia refers to a reduction in PO2 below the normal range, regardless of whether gas exchange is impaired in the lung, CaO2 is adequate, or tissue hypoxia exists. ………….. Chronic alveolar hypoxia is the main factor leading to development of cor pulmonale--right ventricular hypertrophy with or without overt right ventricular failure— PMID: 10771781
Cor pulmonale or pulmonary heart disease is enlargement of the right ventricle of the heart as a response to increased resistance or high blood pressure in the lungs
It can damage your liver………………
Hypoxia and hypoxia inducible factors: diverse roles in liver diseases - Nath B, Szabo G.; Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
Hypoxia has been shown to have a role in the pathogenesis of several forms of liver disease. The hypoxia inducible factors (HIFs) are a family of evolutionarily conserved transcriptional regulators that affect a homeostatic response to low oxygen tension and have been identified as key mediators of angiogenesis, inflammation, and metabolism. In this review we summarize the evidence for a role of HIFs across a range of hepatic pathophysiology. We describe regulation of the HIFs and review investigations that demonstrate a role for HIFs in the development of liver fibrosis, activation of innate immune pathways, hepatocellular carcinoma, as well as other liver diseases in both human disease as well as murine models. PMID: 22120903
It can damage your kidneys………………..
Hypoxia and the HIF system in kidney disease - Nangaku M, Eckardt KU. ; Division of Nephrology and Endocrinology, University of Tokyo School of Medicine, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan,
The kidney is sensitive to changes in oxygen delivery. This sensitivity has the merit of facilitating the kidneys in their adjustment of erythropoietin (EPO) production to changes in oxygen supply. ……….. However, the high sensitivity to changes in oxygen tension also makes the kidney prone to hypoxic injury. Severe energy depletion and subsequent activation of a number of critical alterations in metabolism occurs under hypoxic conditions. Hypoxia is also a profibrogenic stimulus. In addition to ischemic acute renal failure, hypoxia can also play a crucial role in the development of nephrotoxic acute kidney injury, radiocontrast nephropathy, and acute glomerulonephritis. Furthermore, accumulating evidence suggests that chronic hypoxia is a final common pathway to end-stage kidney failure in chronic kidney disease. ….
Long term you can suffer from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. The following study appears not to say this directly, but what it says is that women who are deprived of oxygen during sleep eventually get brain damage and cognitive impairment – dementia
Sleep-disordered breathing, hypoxia, and risk of mild cognitive impairment and dementia in older women - Yaffe K et al; Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA.
CONTEXT: Sleep-disordered breathing (characterized by recurrent arousals from sleep and intermittent hypoxemia) is common among older adults. Cross-sectional studies have linked sleep-disordered breathing to poor cognition; however, it remains unclear whether sleep-disordered breathing precedes cognitive impairment in older adults.
OBJECTIVES: To determine the prospective relationship between sleep-disordered breathing and cognitive impairment and to investigate potential mechanisms of this association.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS:
Prospective sleep and cognition study of 298 women without dementia (mean [SD] age: 82.3 [3.2] years) who had overnight polysomnography measured between January 2002 and April 2004 in a substudy of the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures. Sleep-disordered breathing was defined as an apnea-hypopnea index of 15 or more events per hour of sleep. Multivariate logistic regression was used to determine the independent association of sleep-disordered breathing with risk of mild cognitive impairment or dementia, adjusting for age, race, body mass index, education level, smoking status, presence of diabetes, presence of hypertension, medication use (antidepressants, benzodiazepines, or nonbenzodiazepine anxiolytics), and baseline cognitive scores. Measures of hypoxia, sleep fragmentation, and sleep duration were investigated as underlying mechanisms for this relationship……
RESULTS: Compared with the 193 women without sleep-disordered breathing, the 105 women (35.2%) with sleep-disordered breathing were more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment or dementia
CONCLUSION: Among older women, those with sleep-disordered breathing compared with those without sleep-disordered breathing had an increased risk of developing cognitive impairment.
The list could go on, every organ is affected by hypoxia