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Energy expenditure and substrate oxidation in White and African American young adults without obesity

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 72, pages 920–922 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

It has been hypothesized that the increased risk of obesity among African Americans may be partially explained by low energy expenditure (EE) and impaired fat oxidation. Twelve White adults without obesity were pair-matched by age, sex and body mass index (BMI) to a sample of 12 African Americans. Resting EE (REE), 24-h EE, 24-h RQ, Sleep EE, Sleep RQ, and spontaneous physical activity were measured in a respiratory chamber; and free-living total daily EE (TDEE) and physical activity EE were measured using doubly labeled water. There were no race differences in age, body composition, 24-h RQ, sleep RQ, or spontaneous or free-living physical activity; however, Whites had significantly higher REE (p = 0.02), 24-h EE (p = 0.02), Sleep EE (p = 0.005); but not TDEE (p = 0.30) compared to African Americans after adjustment for FFM. African Americans may have a higher risk for obesity because of lower energy expenditure.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the USDA and NORC Grant #1P30 DK072476. This work was created in the performance of a Specific Co-operative Agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Government of the United States has a royalty-free government purpose license to use, duplicate, or disclose the work, in whole or in part and in any manner, and to have or permit others to do so, for government purposes. PTK is supported, in part, by 1U54 GM104940 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, which funds the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science Center. PTK is partially supported by the Marie Edana Corcoran Endowed Chair in Pediatric Obesity and Diabetes and ER is partially supported by the Douglas L. Gordon Chair in Diabetes and Metabolism.

Authors contributions:

PTK, ER, JR designed and conducted research; PTK analyzed data and wrote paper; ER, JR, JM, ad LR provided critical input; PTK had primary responsibility for final content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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  1. Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    Peter T. Katzmarzyk, Jasper Most, Leanne M. Redman, Jennifer Rood & Eric Ravussin

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  1. Peter T. Katzmarzyk
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  2. Jasper Most
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  3. Leanne M. Redman
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  4. Jennifer Rood
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  5. Eric Ravussin
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Correspondence to Peter T. Katzmarzyk.

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Conflict of interest

Drs. PTK, ER, LMR, and JR report grants from United States Department of Agriculture and from National Institutes of Health during the conduct of the study. Dr. PTK reports speaker fees from Baptist Health South Florida and Renown Health. Dr. ER reports personal fees from ICAN, Amway (Nutrilite) and Janssen, grants from Amway, Nestle, NuSI, Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, Weight Watchers and Ethicon, speaker fees from Open Academy—Venice and Center for Medical Weight Loss, and a patent pending for Nightly Moderated Hypoxia to Treat Insulin Resistance and Cardiometabolic Syndrome, outside the submitted work. Dr. JM declares no conflict of interest.

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Katzmarzyk, P.T., Most, J., Redman, L.M. et al. Energy expenditure and substrate oxidation in White and African American young adults without obesity. Eur J Clin Nutr 72, 920–922 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-018-0202-2

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