Mal-Adaptation of Adaptive At High Altitude

Hypoxia or Oxygen deficiency, contributes significantly to the pathophysiology of many human diseases. High altitude is one such kind of environment where hypoxia is a major stress. The changes in the physiology at high altitude, whether short term or long term, help the successful survival of people from thousands of years. This suggests their adaptation to the adverse environment of high altitude. However the course of adaptation for one trait might be ill-intentioned for another but in term of disease acquisition adaptation is more poisonous. A better understanding of the fundamental physiological, molecular and genetic basis for adaptation to low-oxygen environments of high altitude will help us pointing out the maladaptiveness of adaptive traits to high-altitude hypoxia in humans which arise during the course of adaptation to high altitude. The current review is pointing out few of the adaptive traits at high altitude which also has maladaptive effects as an inherent aspect of adaptation.