Progressive resistance training significantly improved the volunteers' strength, vitality, morale and ability to maintain social activities compared with the control group. This is the first controlled study to show that exercise is an effective antidote for depression and poor sleep in older men and women. And it's the first study to show that resistance training can improve sleep in any age group. BMR accounts for 50 to 70 percent of the calories we burn daily. Clinicians routinely use BMR to estimate the energy needs of patients.
Government agencies use it to recommend calorie intakes.
The researchers had suspected that the current equations do not reflect the energy needs of children and adolescents, particularly non-white youths, because they were derived from measurements done mostly on white adults. What's more, most of the measurements were done during the first half of the century, when equipment and methods were less sophisticated. Based on the new measurements, nine of the 10 equations evaluated significantly overestimated BMR in the black girls, and half overestimated BMR in the white girls. It could lead to routine screening of infants and children, the elderly and others whose immune competence may be suspect. It requires only 0.4 milliliters or less of blood.