The constancy of basal metabolic rate in free-living male subjects

The object of this work was to investigate the constancy of basal metabolic rate (BMR) over time. The BMR was measured in a group of healthy free-living adult men on three separate occasions over some 2 years. Analysis of variance showed that the coefficient of variation within subjects was 4 per cent and between subjects 8 per cent. The results are compared with those of earlier workers, from Zuntz onwards, who made serial measurements of BMR on the same subjects.