HYPOXIA

Hypoxia generically means a low level of oxygen. In different contexts it may refer to:

In the body:

• Hypoxia, the reduction of oxygen in tissues below levels which are considered to be normal.
• Hypoxaemia, the reduction of oxygen specifically in the blood.
• Anoxia the extreme form of hypoxia where there is no oxygen present.
• Ischemia is a medical term for hypoxia where there is a restriction in blood supply, generally due to factors in the blood vessels. Also ischaemia or ischæmia.
• Hyperoxia, the condition opposite to hypoxia, is an excess of oxygen in body tissues or a higher than normal partial pressure of oxygen.

In the environment:

• Environmental hypoxia at high altitudes the reduced partial pressure of oxygen available to organisms at high altitude leads to hypoxia.
• Environmental hypoxia in sea water or oxygen depletion, a reduced concentration of dissolved oxygen in a water body leading to stress and death in aquatic organisms.
• Hypoxic zones, or dead zones, are hypoxic areas in the world's oceans.
• Anoxic sea water is a condition where there is an abnormally low level of oxygen in the sea.
• The oxygen minimum zone is the depth in the sea at which the disolved oxygen level is lowest, or most hypoxic.

Measurements of hypoxia

• Oxygen saturation is a relative measure of the amount of oxygen that is dissolved or carried in a given medium and is therefore a measure of hypoxia or hypoxic conditions.

This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. If an internal link referred you to this page, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.