Human Heat Production in Relation to Body Weight and Body Surface. II. Inapplicability of the Surface Law on Well Proportioned Men of the Tropical Zone

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Abstract
Min. heat production was detd. in 50 well proportioned Brazilian men living in Sao Paulo,by the open circuit method. The men were 20-47 yrs. old, weighed 51.6-90.4 kg., and were not engaged in heavy manual labor. The equation relating total calories/hr. to body wt. was found to be C = 2.334 W0.78, showing the heat pro-duction was not proportional to body surface, but to w0.78, which probably expresses their metabolically active wt. Calculations from data on well proportioned American showed heat production proportional to W0.67, closely corresponding to body surface. For well proportioned men in warm climates it is assumed that the basal metabolism would be:[image] . This standard W0.78 value (2,334) showed max. variation of approx. 16% in 99% of the cases and of approx. 10% in 90%. This value is approx. 15% higher than that for lean men and is attributable to the higher metabolic activity of the muscles in supporting and transporting a greater mass of inactive tissue.
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