Functional manipulations have demonstrated that several HALs, such as lincRNA-ROR [87], PVT1 [113, 114], HIF1A-AS2 [44], UCA1 [118], HOTAIR [79], FEZF1-AS1 [63], ZEB2-AS1 [126] and H19 [66], could act as a ‘ceRNA’ to reduce individual specific miRNA-mediated HIF1A mRNA destabilization and thereby restoring HIF-1α levels and consequently promote cancer progression (Table 1). The gene discussed is H19; the disease is cancer.