Scientists University of Duke (USA) found out that metabolism reaches the peak of speed much earlier than it was assumed before, and begins its decline later. An article that refutes the popular myth is published in the journal Science.
Researchers analyzed how many calories burn on average more than 6,600 people aged from one week to 95 years in everyday life in 29 countries of the world. This number takes into account not only the energy that goes to the functioning of the body, but also for everyday affairs. The total daily energy spending was determined by the urine analysis: the volunteer drank water in which ordinary hydrogen and oxygen atoms were replaced by heavier isotopes, after which they measured how quickly they come out of the body.
Many people believe that in adolescence up to 20 years, the speed of metabolism and burning calories reaches its peak. However, the researchers found that in fact the highest levels of metabolism. Energy needs increase dramatically during the first 12 months of life, so by the end of the first year of life the child burns calories by 50 percent more relative to the size of his body than an adult. Metabolism slows down about three percent each year until 20 years is executed, after which the calorie burning rate reaches a new norm.
At middle age (20-50 years), metabolism is also characterized by stability. The study showed that even during pregnancy, the needs of a woman in calories were no more and no less than expected, given its increase in the mass as the child grows. It is noted that the metabolism does not begin to decline until the age of 60. The slowdown occurs gradually, just 0.7 percent per year. But a man at the age of 90 needs 26 percent less calories every day than middle-aged person. This is due not only to loss of muscle mass, but also with a gradual slowdown of cell metabolism.