A low-cost trait: sebum secretion in mammalian energy budgets
Abstract
This manuscript addresses a fundamental but previously unquantified aspect of mammalian physiology: the energetic cost of a continuous peripheral lipid export pathway. By integrating dermatological measurements with whole-body energy budgets across species, it reveals that sebum represents a continuous yet energetically trivial metabolic flux. This finding reframes sebum as a low-cost, evolutionarily permissive trait, helps resolve apparent paradoxes between hair coverage and lipid secretion, and provides a quantitative framework that is timely given renewed interest in skin biology, barrier energetics, and comparative metabolism.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Acne and Rosacea Treatments and Effects
Skin Protection and Aging
Hair Growth and Disorders
Publication details
- Journal / source
- American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism
- Publisher
- American Physiological Society
- Volume
- 330
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- E586–E588
- Publication date
- 11 March 2026
- Language
- EN