Naoki Nakagawa

The Effects of Food Intake on Muscle Oxygen Consumption

Diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT) is the energy expended in excess of resting metabolic rate for digestion, absorption, transport, metabolism, and storage of foods. Despite a large number of studies on human DIT (Bahr et al., 1991; Burkhard-Jagodzinska et al., 1999; Pittet et al., 1974; Segal et al., 1990; Sekhar et al., 1998; Van Zant et al., 1992; Westerterp et al., 1999), it is not clear in which tissues DIT mainly takes place. Although Astrup et al. (1985, 1986) have shown the possible involvement of skeletal muscle with DIT in humans, rather than brown adipose tissue, there have been few studies examining DIT in skeletal muscle. Furthermore, the effects of various kinds of food, especially sympathetic nervous system (SNS) stimulating agents such as cayenne pepper, on human skeletal muscle metabolism are not fully understood.