Abstract
In an attempt to study diurnal fluctuations of the resting metabolism in relation to other physiological functions in man, the measurements of resting metabolism were made on five male subjects. The subjects were kept lying in bed in the metabolic ward. The resting metabolism was measured every one hour of the experimental day from 7 : 00 to 22 : 00 in supine position.
The results obtained were as follows ;
1. A slight increase of resting metabolism was observed up to 10 : 00. After 10 : 00 the increasing rate of resting metabolism become high. The increments of resting metabolism from basal metabolism were 10%, 17% and 20% at 16 : 00, 19 : 00 and 22 : 00, respectively.
As a possible explanation of the increase of resting metabolism in the fasting status, we suppose the high level of body temperature and lowered RQ in the day time before 19 : 00 and dehydration and the stress of the body by the abnormal fat metabolism after 19 : 00.
2. The coefficients between the resting metabolism and other physiological and metabolic parameters are follows :
FFA in plasma 0.98, keton bodies in blood 0.97, blood sugar-0.95, RQ -0.90, systolic blood pressure 0.79, body temperature 0.79, specific gravity of whole blood 0.99, heart rate 0.74.
The factor analysis indicates that both fat metabolism and water metabolism are the influencing factors for the resting metabolism, but these two factors are independent each other.
