[Slashdot] - Researchers Find Children 'Burn So Much Energy, They're Like a Difference Species'

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A study of 6,400 people "from eight days old up to age 95, in 29 countries," finds that the human metabolism "peaks at the age of one, is stable from 20 to 60 and then inexorably declines," writes the BBC. Long-time Slashdot reader Hope Thelps shares their report: The study, published in the journal Science, found four phases of metabolic life: - birth to age one, when the metabolism shifts from being the same as the mother's to a lifetime high 50% above that of adults - a gentle slowdown until the age of 20, with no spike during all the changes of puberty - no change at all between the ages of 20 and 60 - a permanent decline, with yearly falls that, by 90, leave metabolism 26% lower than in mid-life "The most surprising thing for me," one of the researchers tells the BBC, "is there is no change throughout adulthood — if you are experiencing mid-life spread you can no longer blame it on a declining metabolic rate." Science magazine's headline? "Little kids burn so much energy, they're like a different species, study finds." [T]he first comprehensive study of energy use over the human life span has quantified their burn rate: Infants between the ages of 9 and 15 months expend a stunning 50% more energy in 1 day than adults do, adjusted for body size. These wee dynamos consume and use up energy even faster than pregnant women and teenage boys, most likely to fuel their energetically expensive brains and organs. "Little people are not burning energy like small adults," says Duke University evolutionary biologist Herman Pontzer, who led the new analysis of data from around the world. "They are burning energy superfast ... like a different species."

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