Distinctive aspects of metabolism in the first year of life

✍ Scribed by Brian Wharton; Paul Scott

• Book ID: 103041956
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 128 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0009-9120
• DOI: 10.1016/0009-9120(95)91414-x

✦ Synopsis

Genetics, the stage of development, and the environment modify infant metabolism. Genetic modification may overwhelm the internal metabolic environment. The stage of development modifies metabolism via different mechanisms: a.

reliance on a limited variety of foods; b.

changes in the pancreas, small intestine and colon; c.

differences in metabolic pathways leading to excesses of substrate or deficiencies of product; d.

the balance of substrate stores, dietary intake and growth on the composition of fluids, tissues and total body; e.

tissue sensitivity to metabolic derangement, which at other ages would be harmless; f. changes in glomerular and tubular function. Apart from diet the important environmental influences are oxygen (deficiency or excess) and (normal) repeated episodes of infection all of which may cause metabolic upset.