MET

(Métrologie) (Rare) Met, unité de mesure du métabolisme énergétique, sans dimension, exprimant le métabolisme en multiples du taux métabolique basal.
- 135. Are METs a baseball team?
  No, a MET is a unit of metabolic work. MET stands for metabolic equivalent. Average resting metabolic rate for men and women is 3.5 mL of oxygen uptake per kilogram of body weight per minute, which means that 3.5 mL O₂/kg body weight/min are burned or metabolized to make ATP while just resting. This is equal to approximately 1.2 kcal/min.
  136. How are METs used to quantify work?
  By knowing the energy cost of different types of activity and converting them to their requirement for oxygen, one can use multiples of METs to define intensity. Thus 1 MET is resting activity, 2 METs is work above rest, and 10 METs requires 10 times more oxygen than at rest and is thus harder. METs have been worked out for many activities. METs are commonly used to express exercise intensity and for exercise prescriptions because they are easy to understand and remember for many people. Low intensity is 3–4 METs, moderate is 6–8 METs, and vigorous exercise increases metabolic rate above 10 METs. — (Hershel Raff, Physiology Secrets, Philadelphie : Hanley & Belfus, Inc., 2003 (2^e édition), ISBN 1-56053-509-1, page 306)

Notes

À ne pas confondre avec le met, défini comme 50 kilocalories par mètre carré de surface corporelle par heure, soit environ 58 watts par mètre carré. Le taux métabolique basal d’un homme moyen est d’environ 0,8 à 0,7 mets selon l’âge.