How much do you know about your health? Like, do you know something about – Metabolism? Well, I guess nearly everyone knows the conventional wisdom about metabolism, which is that people add pounds year after year from the time they reach 20 years old and onward, because their metabolisms slow down, specifically during middle age. Well, they’re right, as most of us have a tougher time controlling our weight when we grow old. However, a new study challenges the common assumptions and beliefs about metabolism, and these metabolic Australia experts are changing the way we think about metabolism.
There are 4 Distinct Periods of Life, As Far as Metabolism Goes
According to health experts, metabolism is defined as “the chemical processes which occur or take place within a living organism in order to maintain life”. A new study published in the magazine Thursday in Science (using data gathered from around 6,500 people aged from 8 days to 95 years), researchers found out that there are 4 distinct periods of life, as far as metabolism is concerned.
The study also discovered that there are no real differences between the metabolic Australia rates of men and women after controlling for other factors. These findings are likely to change, or perhaps reshape, the science of human physiology, and it may also have serious implications for some medical pratices such as determining the correct drug doses for children and the elderly.
However, the study’s findings implications for diet, nutrition and public health are limited for the meantime, perhaps because this study gives a very wide view of energy metabolism. The research team stresses that one cannot make a new clinical statements for an individual. When it comes to weight gain, the researchers say that the issue is most likely the same as it has always been, which is that people are eating more calories that they are burning.
All of the Project’s Participating Researchers Agreed to Share Their Data
Do you know why most studies about metabolic Australia functions and implications are either not well known, or are participated by very few participants? Well, the answer is that research concerning metabolism is very expensive.
However, this new study’s principal investigator has stressed that all of the project’s participating researchers have agreed to share all their data. By combining the efforts, and knowledge collected from half a dozen laboratories over 40 years, the research team has had sufficient information to ask general questions in changes in metabolism over a lifetime.
All of the research centers and facilities involved in the project were studying and analyzing metabolic Australia rates using a method that is considered the gold standard, doubly labeled water. This involves measuring calories that are burned by tracking the amount of carbon dioxide that a person exhales during his or her daily activities.
The research team also had the height and weight of all the participants, along with their percent body fat, which allowed them to look at fundamental metabolic Australia rates. While they agreed that a smaller individual will burn fewer calories than a bigger person, but were their metabolism different? (After correcting for size and percent fat).
Metabolism Differs For All People Across the 4 Distinct Stages of Life
Central to the research team’s findings was that metabolism varies or differs for all individuals across the 4 distinct stages of life. Like, there’s infancy up to age 1, when calorie burning is at its peak, and accelerates until it is 50% above the adult rate.
Then from age 1 to age 20, metabolism gradually slows down by about 3% a year. From age 20 to 60 years old, it holds steady. But, after age 60, the metabolism steadily declines by around 0.7% a year.
Once the study team controlled for body size and the amount of muscle that people have, they also found no major differences between men and women. And while the metabolic Australia rate patterns hold for the population, individuals vary.
Like, some people have metabolism rates that are 25% below the average for their age, others have metabolism rates that are 25% higher than expected. However, these outliers do not change the general pattern, which as reflected in graphs shows the trajectory of metabolic Australia over the years.
The 4 periods or stages of metabolism depicted in the study also showed that there is not a constant rate of energy expenditure per pound, and the rate depends on age. This actually runs counter to the age-old assumptions or beliefs that most in the nutrition science sector held.
The curves and arcs in metabolism rates over the course of a lifetime, and the people who are outliers will perhaps open or reveal a number of research questions. Like for example, what are the characteristics of people whose metabolisms are higher, or lower than expected, and where the relationship with obesity is.
One of the findings that surprised the study team was the metabolism of the infants. They expected that a newborn child would have a sky-high metabolic Australia rate. After all, the general assumption in biology is that smaller animals burn calories much quicker than the larger ones.
Instead, the study team said that for the first month of life, babies have the same metabolism rate as that of their mothers. However, shortly after an infant is born, something kicks in and the metabolic Australia rates takes off.
The study team also expected that the metabolism rate for adults starts to slow when they were in their 40s, or for women with the onset of menopause. However they just didn’t see that, as the metabolic slowdown begins at around the age of 60 often results in a 20% drop in the metabolic Australia rate by age 95.
The research team also pointed out that although people gain on average more than a pound and a half a year during adulthood, they can no longer attribute this to slowing metabolism.
As the energy requirements for body organs like the heart, kidney, liver and brain account for 65% of the resting metabolic Australia rate, a slower metabolism after age 60 may mean that the critical organs are functioning less well as people get older. This might be one reason why chronic diseases tend to occur most often in older people.
Now, isn’t this so surprising? Well, I never knew much about metabolism. But then again, this new study gives me more than an eye-opener on how our metabolism drops as we age, and what can we do to turn things around in a nice way.
