Basal metabolic rate of Indian men: no evidence of metabolic adaptation to a low plane of nutrition.

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) was measured in 58 men of a rural Indian population who had low body weight and body fat stores. Comparisons of subgroups of subjects of different socio-economic status and different nutritional status showed no evidence of differences in BMR when corrected for differences in body weight and body fat content. This suggests that metabolic adaptation did not account for differences in absolute BMR between subgroups of this population. The BMR values agreed well with values predicted by equations based on BMR measurements in Asian men of higher body weight, but were below values predicted by the new FAO/WHO/UNU prediction equations by an average of 12.1 per cent (P less than 0.0001). This overprediction could be a reflection of allometric or climatic influences on BMR rather than evidence for metabolic adaptation to a low plane of energy nutrition.