Substrate Cycling in Severe Burn Injury

To the Editor: We are intrigued by the provocative hypothesis of Wolfe et al. (Aug. 13 issue)¹ that an increase in substrate cycling is responsible for the elevation in the “body temperatures of patients with severe stress.” We assume that the energy expenditures of the patients were elevated 6.5 cal per kilogram per minute rather than the reported “6.5. kcal per kilogram per minute.” The resting energy expenditure of a recumbent 70-kg person is reported to be approximately 77 kcal per hour, and this increases approximately 30 percent when the person merely sits up.² Were this increase in.