Current Research:
Two billion years of evolution in an oxygen environment has determined that oxygen metabolism occupies a central feature of our biology. It appears evolution followed the increased free energy transfer afforded by the widened redox potential when oxygen is the final electron acceptor in oxidation reactions. Obligatory for using oxygen in energy transfer pathways, was the simultaneous co-evolution of enzymes that detoxify the reactive oxygen species that are by-products of oxidation reactions. Thus, the pathways that mediate both oxidation reactions and oxygen detoxification reactions constitute a large part of our biology. As an extension, it is not surprising that maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) has emerged as a clinical reference point. In aggregate, these ideas suggest this unified hypothesis:
"Aerobic capacity is the major determinant of the continuum between health and disease."
If true, then general models of low and high health should emerge from artificial selection for low and high aerobic capacity.
In 1996 Koch and Britton started large-scale artificial selection (two-way) for low and high aerobic capacity (Physiological Genomics, 2001). Aerobic capacity was estimated from a speed-ramped treadmill run to exhaustion to create lines of Low Capacity Runners (LCR) and High Capacity Runners (HCR). Our work involves testing the validity of the above unified hypothesis. If the hypothesis is true, the low line will manifest many diseases and the high line will be largely resistant to disease. Current data support the view that LCR manifest many of the complexes associated with metabolic syndrome (Science, 2005).
Selected Publications:
Wisloff U, Najjar SM, Ellingsen O, Haram PM, Swoap S, Al-Share Q, Fernström M, Rezaei K, Lee SJ, Koch LG, Britton SL: Cardiovascular risk factors emerge from artificial selection for low aerobic capacity. Science 2005; 307:418-420
Koch LG, Britton SL. Evolution, atmospheric oxygen, and complex disease. Physiological Genomics 2007; 30(3):205-8.
Koch LG, Britton SL. Aerobic metabolism underlies complexity and capacity. Journal of Physiology 2008; 586.1:83-95
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