Studies on the Basal Metabolism of Japanese (Report 8)

Basal Metabolism and Body Temperature of Women

Abstract

Whether there is a regular fluctuation of female basal metabolism related to menstrual cycle has not been decided yet, in spite of many authors' efforts. Some of them recognized the fluctuations of the basal metabolism, but did not found a common rule among them.
However, concerning the body temperature, a physiological rise right after ovulation continued until next menses has been confermed in most of healthy women. So, this experiment was conducted, expecting that it may be a easier way to survey the basal metabolism correlated with body temperature, in order to find out the common rule of its fluctuation.
Daily basal metabolism of two girls aged 21 and 23 years measured by Douglas bag method for 38 days. Body temperature under tongue was surveyed with a mercury thermometer equipped in special accuracy.
Results were as follows:
(1) The correlation coefficients between basal metabolism and body temperature wer amounted to 0.5-0.7. The basal metabolism is usually influenced by many kinds of factors, therefor these correlation would mean “basal metabolism is in a parallel relation with body temperature”.
(2) The maximum deviations from arithmetic mean of the basal metabolism during 38 days were ±7% and ±6% in two girls. The same kind of deviations of 3 girls conducted by a respiration chamber method in 1936 at this institute were ±%, ±9%, and ±7%. These results show that Douglas bag method can not be inferior in accuracy than chamber method.