藏族生活在具有世界屋脊之称的青藏高原,特殊的生态环境和特殊的文化背景造就了藏族特殊的适应高原缺氧机制,引起了国内外学者的广泛关注和浓厚的研究兴趣。本文根据国内外数据库的文献并结合我们的研究工作,从高原适应的角度回顾了30多年藏族人类学研究。回顾显示,藏族由于长期生活在高原缺氧的环境中,不仅形态和机能发生了适应性变化,而且体成分也表现出相应的变化,体现了形态、机能和体成分的统一。这些变化是长期进化形成的,与安第斯山人等有明显不同,就是在同一高原生活的西藏、青海、四川、甘肃和云南的藏族乃至尼泊尔和印度藏族的体质也表现出地域差异,这些差异的产生是多种因素所致,两个关键性的基因是导致两大高原人口高原适应机制不同的最主要的原因。
Tibetans live in a special ecological environment, the Tibetan Plateau, called the Roof of the World. They have a unique culture and special adaptive machanisms to high altitude hypoxia, which caused widespread global attention and scholarly interest. We reviewed 30 years of Tibetan biological anthropology studies, specifically plateau hypoxia adaptation. The review showed that Tibetans have adaptive variations in their body morphology and function, but also in their body composition. These adaptive changes in Tibetans had evolved for a long time and were significantly different from those of Andens, even living in the same of the Tibetan Plateau. Tibetans in Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan provinces of China, including Tibetans in Nepal and India also showed regional differences in the above biological aspects. Changes in Tibetan adaptations to hypoxia were caused by a number of factors, in addition to two key genes for hypoxia adaptation.