Blood glucose concentration is unchanged during exposure to acute normobaric hypoxia in healthy humans

Normal blood [glucose] regulation is critical to support metabolism, particularly in contexts of metabolic stressors (e.g., exercise, high altitude hypoxia). Data regarding blood [glucose] regulation in hypoxia are inconclusive. We aimed to characterize blood [glucose] over 80 min following glucose ingestion during both normoxia and acute normobaric hypoxia. In a randomized cross‐over design, on two separate days, 28 healthy participants (16 females; 21.8 ± 1.6 years; BMI 22.8 ± 2.5 kg/m2) were randomly exposed to either NX (room air; fraction of inspired [FI]O2 ~0.21) or HX (FIO2 ~0.148) in a normobaric hypoxia chamber. Measured FIO2 and peripheral oxygen saturation were both lower at baseline in hypoxia (p 0.77). In addition, mean, peak, and time‐to‐peak responses during the 80 min were not different between conditions (p > 0.14). There were also no sex differences in these blood [glucose] responses in hypoxia. We conclude that glucose regulation is unchanged in young, healthy participants with exposure to acute steady‐state normobaric hypoxia, likely due to counterbalancing mechanisms underlying blood [glucose] regulation in hypoxia.
In a large sample of young healthy male and female participants, blood glucose homeostasis in response to a standard oral glucose load (75 g, 296 ml) was unchanged in response to exposure to acute normobaric hypoxia (FIO2 14.8%) compared to room air over 80‐min, using multiple metrics including mean, peak, and time‐to‐peak responses.