[Energetics of child's organisim: qualitative and quantitative specifics]

The review summarizes data on the age transformations of energy metabolism observed in the human ontogeny from birth to maturity. Shown that elevated basal energy in child is not associated with the activity of the growth processes. As maturing body structures qualitative changes of metabolic processes appear, which generally lead to economizing and expand functional range. At the same time, even in the adult organism there are some specialized structures (a.e. brown adipose tissue), providing energy dissipation and thereby participate in maintaining energy and substrate homeostasis. Suggested that the increased metabolic rate in childhood forms the body's resistance thanks to the "gyroscopic effect" and thus allows safely overcome the most intense and important stages of ontogenesis.