Changes in metabolic energy measures for daily living activities and exercise in men and women following arduous activity in Antarctica

John Hattersley; C Douglas Thake; Christopher Imray; Adrian J.  Wilson

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0335735

Changes in metabolic energy measures for daily living activities and exercise in men and women following arduous activity in Antarctica

John Hattersley, C Douglas Thake, Christopher Imray, Adrian J. Wilson

Centre for Physical Activity, Sport and Exercise Sciences

University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust

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Abstract

This study reports pre- to post-expedition (pre|post) changes in energy expenditure and substrate utilisation during daily living activities (DLAs including rest, sleep, modest exercise, sedentary work and leisure) and maximum aerobic power (V̇O2max) for participants in the Inspire-22 expedition (6 men, 3 women) who undertook a 47 day unassisted Antarctic traverse from the Ronne Ice Shelf to the South Pole. DLA measurements were carried out during a 36 hour study in a whole-body calorimeter whilst measurements of maximum oxygen uptake (V̇O2max), capillary glucose and lactate during incremental stepping exercise to volitional exhaustion were carried out under normobaric normoxic and hypoxic (14% O2) conditions in an environmental chamber. Non-exercise measures were normalised to non-fat tissue weight; exercise measures, including those in the DLAs, to body weight. Statistical analysis used the Aligned Rank Transform (ART) non-parametric ANOVA technique with covariants pre|post expedition, sex and hypoxia|normoxia as appropriate. There were no systematic differences between pre- and post-expedition energy expenditure but significant differences between men and women for the majority of the DLAs (p<0.05). There was increased carbohydrate utilisation post-expedition for sleep and the two lower intensity exercise levels (p<0.05) but not during rest or the highest intensity exercise (p>0.05); a sex-independent subset of 4 showing much higher utilisation. Women had a lower protein utilisation than men during the DLA exercise activities (p<0.05). V̇O2max was lower in hypoxia than normoxia (p<0.001) and reduced glucose and lactate between pre- and post-expedition measures. There was also a significant interaction between sex and pre|post measurements for V̇O2max and lactate suggesting that adaptation to the environment and high workloads was different between men and women; a suggestion supported by the difference in fat-free tissue measured pre- and post-expedition, but neither sex showed major differences between the pre- and post-expedition measurements.

Original language	English
Article number	e0335735
Number of pages	20
Journal	PLoS ONE
Volume	20
Issue number	10
Early online date	31 Oct 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0335735
Publication status	Published - 31 Oct 2025

Bibliographical note

© 2025 Hattersley et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited..

Funding

The scientific study was principally funded by a grant from the UK Ministry of Defence, Royal Centre of Defence Medicine (RCDM) https://www.uhb.nhs.uk/services/royal-centre-for-defence-medicine and sponsored by the department of Research and Clinical Innovation, RCDM (awarded to RG and NT). The study was also generously supported by the Drummond Foundation, a committee of the Royal Army Medical Corps charity (https:// www.ramcassociation.org.uk) which awarded a donation (to NT) from non-public funds. In addition, the study received support from the women in ground close combat study funded by the Ministry of Defence (ref: ASC task 108, awarded to RG). Civilian funding for the scientific study came from: The Charles Swithinbank Award to the Inspire-22 expedition from the Andrew Croft Memorial Fund (https://www. acmf.org.uk/), the Mount Everest Foundation (https://www.mef.org.uk Ref: 22/03, awarded to CI), the Gino Watkins Memorial Fund (https:// www.spri.cam.ac.uk/about/funding/ginowatkins, awarded to CI), and the JABBS Foundation (awarded to CI). Commercial and individual philanthropic support for expedition and on-ice logistics was provided by (in alphabetical order): AlleyCorp (https://alleycorp.com); Empatica Inc. (https://www.empatica.com); FJ Labs (https://fjlabs.com); Fabrice Grinda (https://fabricegrinda.com); Taavet Hinrikus; Jack Kreindler; Medable Inc. (https://www.medable.com); OzCo Building Products (https:// ozcobp . com); Arnis Ozol (https://www.ozoco. eu); Plural UK Management Ltd., (https:// pluralplatform.com); Printify Inc., (https:// printify.com); Kevin Ryan; WellFounded. Health Ltd., (https://wellfounded.health) None of the scientific nor expedition funders had any role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. None of the authors received personal support from any of the funders. All commercial and philanthropic support for the expedition was applied for and awarded to the Inspire-22 expedition. INSPIRE-22 Science Team (in alphabetical order): Rob Gifford, John Hattersley, Chris Imray, Natalie Taylor, Doug Thake, Adrian Wilson, with support from Mark Christian, Fiona Koivula and Prof. David Woods. INSPIRE-22 participants whose support was essential in obtaining the data reported (in alphabetical order): Nadja Albertson, Roger Alcock, Stephano Capello, Henry Crosby (deceased), Mike Eager, Pat Harper, Chris Imray, Stephanie Innes Smith, Natalie Taylor. For the Whole-Body calorimeter work reported in this paper we acknowledge Alison Campbell for nursing support and David Dixon for technical support. For the exercise measurements we acknowledge the support of Dirk Dugdale Duwell. by the department of Research and Clinical Innovation, RCDM (awarded to RG and NT). The study was also generously supported by the Drummond Foundation, a committee of the Royal Army Medical Corps charity (https:// www.ramcassociation.org.uk ) which awarded a donation (to NT) from non-public funds. In addition, the study received support from the women in ground close combat study funded by the Ministry of Defence (ref: ASC task 108, awarded to RG). Civilian funding for the scientific study came from: The Charles Swithinbank Award to the Inspire-22 expedition from the Andrew Croft Memorial Fund (https://www.

Funders	Funder number
Ministry of Defence
Drummond Foundation
Andrew Croft Memorial Fund
Mount Everest Foundation	22/03
JABBS Foundation

Keywords

Activities of Daily Living
Adult
Antarctic Regions
Energy Metabolism - physiology
Exercise - physiology
Female
Humans
Male
Oxygen Consumption - physiology
Young Adult

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Cite this

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title = "Changes in metabolic energy measures for daily living activities and exercise in men and women following arduous activity in Antarctica",

abstract = "This study reports pre- to post-expedition (pre|post) changes in energy expenditure and substrate utilisation during daily living activities (DLAs including rest, sleep, modest exercise, sedentary work and leisure) and maximum aerobic power ({\.V}O2max) for participants in the Inspire-22 expedition (6 men, 3 women) who undertook a 47 day unassisted Antarctic traverse from the Ronne Ice Shelf to the South Pole. DLA measurements were carried out during a 36 hour study in a whole-body calorimeter whilst measurements of maximum oxygen uptake ({\.V}O2max), capillary glucose and lactate during incremental stepping exercise to volitional exhaustion were carried out under normobaric normoxic and hypoxic (14\% O2) conditions in an environmental chamber. Non-exercise measures were normalised to non-fat tissue weight; exercise measures, including those in the DLAs, to body weight. Statistical analysis used the Aligned Rank Transform (ART) non-parametric ANOVA technique with covariants pre|post expedition, sex and hypoxia|normoxia as appropriate. There were no systematic differences between pre- and post-expedition energy expenditure but significant differences between men and women for the majority of the DLAs (p<0.05). There was increased carbohydrate utilisation post-expedition for sleep and the two lower intensity exercise levels (p<0.05) but not during rest or the highest intensity exercise (p>0.05); a sex-independent subset of 4 showing much higher utilisation. Women had a lower protein utilisation than men during the DLA exercise activities (p<0.05). {\.V}O2max was lower in hypoxia than normoxia (p<0.001) and reduced glucose and lactate between pre- and post-expedition measures. There was also a significant interaction between sex and pre|post measurements for {\.V}O2max and lactate suggesting that adaptation to the environment and high workloads was different between men and women; a suggestion supported by the difference in fat-free tissue measured pre- and post-expedition, but neither sex showed major differences between the pre- and post-expedition measurements.",

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N1 - © 2025 Hattersley et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited..

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Changes in metabolic energy measures for daily living activities and exercise in men and women following arduous activity in Antarctica

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

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