6 Factors That Affect Your Body's Metabolism • Hello Sehat
Metabolism is the entire chemical process that occurs in the body when converting your food into energy. This whole chemical process is what produces and circulates the energy your body needs for survival.
However, not everyone has a different metabolic rate. Some are fast, some are slow. This metabolic rate also affects how quickly you get hungry again, and how fast your body burns calories. What affects a person’s metabolism?
Factors affecting metabolism
1. Sleep time
Sleep time can affect your metabolism by helping it to remain stable. Your body will certainly find it difficult to produce energy when the body is tired and is forced to work at the time it should rest. This condition can also trigger diseases that can indirectly affect the body’s metabolic performance such as diabetes and obesity.
A study was conducted at the University of Pennsylvania to 36 adults for 5 days. They are allowed to sleep for only 4 hours per night. The result, lack of sleep at night causes the body’s metabolism to slow down 50 to 60 calories per day.
2. Hormones
Several hormones can affect the speed at which metabolic processes occur in your body. Some conditions such as diabetes and an overactive or possibly underactive thyroid are examples. Stress can also slow down the speed in your body by releasing the hormone cortisol. The presence of this hormone has the potential to inhibit the use of insulin which is needed in the metabolic process.
3. Age
Starting from the age of 40, your metabolism will naturally slow down by about 5 percent each year. This is because as you get older, you tend to lose muscle and gain weight, so fewer calories will be needed. Aging also affects the thyroid gland, which plays a role in the fast and slow rate of metabolism.
4. Food consumed
Your body needs sufficient nutritional intake to convert it into energy and carry out daily activities. The thyroid gland in your body also needs sufficient iodine to manage the metabolism that occurs. In addition to the health of your bones, calcium is also needed as a nutrient in the metabolic process. The presence of carbohydrates in certain doses is also needed in the metabolic process to produce insulin.
5. Fluid in the body
The presence of fluids in the body affects the metabolism in your body. This is because fluids are needed in the metabolic process to burn energy and as fuel for reducing body mass. Lack of fluids in the body can actually inhibit metabolic processes.
6. Medicines
Health condition is one of the factors that affect metabolism. When you are taking certain drugs such as antidepressants, this can actually trigger a slowdown in metabolic processes that occur in the body.
Hello Health Group does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.