Fraction of basal metabolism required by brain, heart, liver, kidney and the gastrointestinal tract

Value 70 %
Organism Human Homo sapiens
Reference Roth G, Dicke U. Evolution of the brain and intelligence. Trends Cogn Sci. 2005 May9(5):250-7. p.254 box 2PubMed ID15866152
Primary Source Aiello, L.C. et al. (2001) In defense of the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis. In Evolutionary Anatomy of the Primate Cerebral Cortex (Falk, D. and Gibson, K.R., eds), pp. 57–78, Cambridge University Press
Comments The human brain occupies only 2% of body mass, but consumes about 20% of total metabolism. However, heart, liver, kidney and the gastrointestinal tract are equally ‘expensive’. Together with the brain, they consume about 70% of basal metabolism of the human body (primary source)
Entered by Uri M
ID 106137