BACKGROUND South Asians are susceptible to cardiovascular disease (CVD), especially after migration to affluent countries. Contributing factors include high prevalence of diabetes, and possibly insulin resistance. Excess adiposity centrally may underlie such metabolic disturbances. The thrifty genotype, thrifty phenotype, adipose tissue compartment and variable disease selection hypotheses are ...

â  â â â â â  â  â  abstract: â  there is a significant relationship between economic growth and the degree of urban concentration, as measured by primacy or the share of the largest city in an urban system. in accordance to urban economic theories, there is an inverse-u shape relationship between urban concentration –urban primacy- and economic growth. that is, as economy grows, urban concen...

The objective of the present study was to examine the influence of energy supplementation and its cessation thereafter on the basal metabolic rates (BMR) of chronically undernourished individuals. Seven apparently healthy males were supplemented daily with 3.35 MJ (15 g protein, 35 g fat, 105 g carbohydrate) for 12 weeks. The average gain in body-weight was 1.9 kg (body fat, 58%; fat-free mass ...

An experiment was conducted to determine animal performance and gain/ha of beef steers (mean initial wt.: 241 kg) grazing a conventional sorghum x sudan hybrid (C) versus its near isogenic brown midrib (BMR) variety. The experiment was conducted during the summers of 1999 and 2000 in the Texas Panhandle. During both summers 8 pasture plots (2.2 ha) were blocked by location and randomly assigned...

Summit metabolism (M sum), the maximum rate of resting metabolic thermogenesis, has been found to be broadly correlated with climatic variables and the use of heterothermy in some endotherms. Far less is known about M sum and metabolic expansibility [ME, the ratio of M sum to basal metabolic rate (BMR)] in bats compared with many other endotherm taxa. We measured BMR and M sum during winter and...

Thermal conductance measures the ease with which heat leaves or enters an organism's body. Although the analysis of this physiological variable in relation to climatic and ecological factors can be traced to studies by Scholander and colleagues, only small advances have occurred ever since. Here, we analyse the relationship between minimal thermal conductance estimated during summer (Cmin) and ...

Basal metabolic rate (BMR), the minimal energetic cost of living in endotherms, is known to be influenced by thyroid hormones (THs) which are known to stimulate in vitro oxygen consumption of tissues in birds and mammals. Several environmental contaminants may act on energy expenditure through their thyroid hormone-disrupting properties. However, the effect of contaminants on BMR is still poorl...

23 Mammals exposed to low temperatures increase their metabolic rate to maintain constant 24 body temperature and thus compensate heat loss. This high and costly energetic demand 25 can be mitigated through thermoregulatory behavior such as social grouping or huddling, 26 which helps to decrease metabolic rate as function of the numbers of individuals grouped. 27 Sustained low temperatures in e...

Lignin is an essential structural component of all land plants. It fills spaces in the cell wall between cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectin. Lignin provides the strength to plants from giant Sequoia trees to alfalfa growing in hay fields. A good analogy is that lignin is like the steel reinforcing rods in concrete. Life on earth would not be possible without lignin to allow plants to grow upr...