The Association between Basal Metabolic Rate and Temperament in Iranian Traditional Medicine point of view

Background and The human body requires energy expenditure to sustain life. The major of the consumed energy including basal metabolic rate which is varies between different people, and many factors can affected it. On the other hand there is a temperamental point of view in the school of Iranian Traditional Medicine and many factors influence on temperament. It seems that the characteristics of warm or cold temperament and its affected factors have many similarities to the factors affecting basal metabolic rate. So, these similarities have contributed to examine the concept of temperament in traditional medicine and also to compare the temperament with the basal metabolic rate.
Methods and Materials: This study was a descriptive review examination which was carried out with surveying the documented sources of classic medicine and traditional medicine, including reliable sources of classic medicine, available databases and comprehensive library of traditional medicine software and also on original texts of the traditional medicine. After the classification of obtained data, all of the differences and similarities of factors affecting the temperament and basal metabolic rate were investigated and explained.
According to the results of this study, it seems that people with warm temperament have more basal metabolic rate and the persons with cold temperament conversely have lower level of basal metabolic rate. From the perspective of classic medicine the regulation of basal metabolic rate and related factors is essential to sustain human life and also based on the traditional medicine detection and balancing of temperament is a most important factor in health maintaining and treating of disease. Also the science of Temperament is one of the basic concepts of traditional medicine that was discussed in detail in texts of the traditional medicine. It hopes that further examination could result in a different view to health of people and more options evaluated in this regard.
Factors such as more muscle mass, larger body surface, being younger, male gender, and physical activity increases the basal metabolic rate; on the other hand according to the traditional medicine point of view muscular body, large body shape, infancy age, being male and the high mobility is Considered as the characteristic of warm temperament. As well as factors decreasing the basal metabolic rate are entirely similar to the characteristic of cold temperament.