Publication Date:
1985-04-12
Description:
Little is known about the digestive adaptations that enable mammals to sustain metabolic rates an order of magnitude higher than those of reptiles. Comparison of several features of digestion in mammals and lizards of similar size eating the same diet revealed that mammals processed food ten times faster and with the same or greater extraction efficiency. Transport kinetics and rates of nutrient absorption normalized to the quantity of intestinal tissue were similar in these two classes of vertebrates. The main basis for faster absorption in mammals is their much greater intestinal surface area.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Karasov, W H -- Diamond, J M -- AM17328/AM/NIADDK NIH HHS/ -- GM14772/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1985 Apr 12;228(4696):202-4.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3975638" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Biological Transport
;
*Body Temperature
;
Diet
;
*Digestion
;
Eating
;
Glucose/metabolism
;
Intestines/anatomy & histology/physiology
;
Lizards/physiology
;
Mice
;
Proline/metabolism
;
Rats
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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