Measuring the short-term substrate utilization response to high-carbohydrate and high-fat meals in the whole-body indirect calorimeter

Authors: GRIBOK, ANDREI - Department Of Energy; LEGER, JAYME - University Of Maryland; STEVENS, MICHELLE - University Of Maryland; HOYT, REED - Us Army Research Institute Of Environmental Medicine; BULLER, MARK - Us Army Research Institute Of Environmental Medicine; Rumpler, William

Submitted to: Physiological Reports
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/26/2016
Publication Date: 6/28/2016
Citation: Gribok, A., Leger, J., Stevens, M., Hoyt, R., Buller, M., Rumpler, W.V. 2016. Measuring the short-term substrate utilization response to high-carbohydrate and high-fat meals in the whole-body indirect calorimeter. Physiological Reports. 4. https://doi.org/10.14814/phy2.12835.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14814/phy2.12835

Interpretive Summary: Understanding the dynamics of fuel use in humans allows for the investigation of the underlying causes of glucose regulation and dysfunction, and ultimately metabolic disorders such as diabetes. This paper demonstrates that minute-by-minute metabolic response to meals with different macro nutrient content can be measured and discerned in the whole room indirect calorimeter. The ability to discriminate between high carbohydrate and high fat meals is achieved by applying mathematical modeling and data processing techniques to data collect under real time conditions. These methods allow investigators to differentiate between real metabolic responses and background noise generated by the environment and instrumentation. The methods were applied to 63 calorimeter sessions, each of 24 hours long. The data were collected from 16 healthy volunteers (8 males, 8 females, aged 22-35). Each volunteer performed four 24-hour long calorimeter sessions. At each session, they received one of four treatment combinations involving exercise (high or low intensity) and diet (a high fat or high carbohydrate shake for lunch). During the 24-hour stay in the calorimeter, subjects wore a continuous glucose monitoring system in order to follow their glucose levels over the course of the day. The minute-by-minute ratio of oxygen consumption to carbon dioxide production (RER), an index of how much fat or carbohydrate is being burned by the body showed excellent agreement with blood glucose concentrations. The results show that whole room calorimeters can be utilized as tools to study short-term kinetics of substrate oxidation in humans.

Technical Abstract: The paper demonstrates that minute-to-minute metabolic response to meals with different macronutrient content can be measured and discerned in the whole-body indirect calorimeter. The ability to discriminate between high-carbohydrate and high-fat meals is achieved by applying a modified regularization technique with additional constraints imposed on oxygen consumption rate. These additional constraints reduce the differences in accuracy between the oxygen and carbon dioxide analyzers. The modified technique was applied to 63 calorimeter sessions that were each 24 h long. The data were collected from 16 healthy volunteers (eight males, eight females, aged 22-35 years). Each volunteer performed four 24-h long calorimeter sessions. At each session, they received one of four treatment combinations involving exercise (high or low intensity) and diet (a high-fat or high-carbohydrate shake for lunch). One volunteer did not complete all four assignments, which brought the total number of sessions to 63 instead of 64. During the 24-h stay in the calorimeter, subjects wore a continuous glucose monitoring system, which was used as a benchmark for subject's postprandial glycemic response. The minute-by-minute respiratory exchange ratio (RER) data showed excellent agreement with concurrent subcutaneous glucose concentrations in postprandial state. The averaged minute-to-minute RER response to the high-carbohydrate shake was significantly different from the response to high-fat shake. Also, postprandial RER slopes were significantly different for two dietary treatments. The results show that whole-body respiration calorimeters can be utilized as tools to study short-term kinetics of substrate oxidation in humans.