Physiological economy in nutrition, with special reference to the minimal proteid requirement of the healthy man: an experimental studyChittenden, R. H. (Russell Henry)
Science
Physiological economy in nutrition, with special reference to the minimal proteid requirement of the healthy man: an experimental study
Chittenden, R. H. (Russell Henry)
Metabolism; Nutrition
Certain general conclusions seem to be justified by the results reported.
A healthy man, whose occupation is such as not to involve excessive
muscular work, but whose activity is mainly mental rather than physical,
though by no means excluding the latter, can live on a much smaller
amount of proteid or albuminous food than is usually considered essential
for life, without loss of mental or physical strength and vigor, and
with maintenance of body and nitrogen equilibrium. This means that the
ordinary professional man who leads an active and even strenuous life,
with its burden of care and responsibility, need not clog his system
and inhibit his power for work by the ingestion of any such quantities
of proteid food as the ordinary dietetic standards call for. There is
no real physiological need—that is apparent—for the adoption of such
dietetic habits as ordinarily prevail, or as are called for by the
dietary standards set by most authorities in this branch of physiology.
There is no justifiable ground for the dictum, or the assumption, that
the adult man of average body-weight needs daily 118 grams of proteid
food for the maintenance of health, strength and vigor, or that there
is need for the metabolism of at least 16 grams of nitrogen daily. If
such were the case, how could these five subjects, whose experiences
have been detailed in the foregoing pages, have maintained their
body-weight, established nitrogen equilibrium, pursued their ordinary
vocations without loss of strength and vigor, and kept in a perpetual
condition of good health, with an average daily metabolism of from 5.4
grams of nitrogen to 8.99 grams of nitrogen for periods ranging from six
to eighteen months? Surely, if 16 to 18 grams of nitrogen are a daily
requisite for the healthy adult, there should have been some sign of
nitrogen starvation during these long periods of low proteid diet, but
the sharpest scrutiny failed to find it. On the contrary, there were not
wanting signs of improved conditions of the body which could not well be
associated with anything but the changes in diet.
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