Basal Metabolic Studies in the Punjab

It had long been felt that while valuable work on basal metabolism had been done in Bengal (Bose and De, 1934; Mukherjee and Gupta, 1931), Madras (Krishnan and Vareed, 1932; Mason and Benedict, 1931), Bombay (Sokhey and Malandkar, 1939; Niyogi. Patwardhan and Mordecai, 1939; Niyogi.. Patwardhan and Sirsat, 1941), Lucknow (Banerji, 1931), Hyderabad, Deccan (Rahman, 1936) and Coonoor (Rajagopal, 1938) no normal standards were available for the Punjab which differs from other provinces of India chiefly in having wheat-eating population, better physique and extremes of climate. There is considerable evidence that dietetic, climatic and occupational factors influence basal metabolism. Basal metabolic rate in other provinces of India deviates markedly from the accepted American and European standards. This observation made the demand for an investigation of the standards in the Punjab all the more important. Though this work was undertaken with this limited objective yet the greatest possible accuracy in the experimental technique was aimed at and full data were recorded with a