Dr. Katarina Melzer lectures Sport and Nutrition at ESPEN Congress

30. August 2019.

As every year, great being back at ESPEN again, lecturing and exchanging ideas with many brilliant minds, this time in the wonderful town of Krakow.

Energy balance is the state in which energy expenditure equals metabolizable energy intake. Negative energy balance occurs when expenditure is greater than intake, and positive energy balance occurs when energy intake is greater than expenditure. The extent to which exercise changes energy balance depends on the extent to which the increase in energy expenditure due to exercise is balanced by a compensatory increase in energy intake.

Variations in energy balance are associated with changes in body weight, and more specifically, with variations in body energy reserves. In healthy adults, protein and carbohydrate stores vary relatively little and body weight regulation mainly concerns adipose tissue mass. The point at which a stable body weight and body composition is reached and defined, therefore, is the point at which fat balance is achieved.

Nevertheless, while studying energy balance regulation, the critical issue is not energy expenditure or intake taken separately, but the adjustment of one to the other under ad libitumfood intake. Studies investigating the effect of exercise on body composition, as well as studies investigating the effect of exercise on ad libitum energy intake, provide insight into the association between exercise and energy balance.

Come and join us for the lecture and interesting discussions!

Dr. Katarina Melzer