A possible genetic interpretation of auto-regulatory mechanism in models for protein deficiency

Abstract

The inter- and intra-individual variability with serially correlated observations, as for instance with nitrogen balance on successive days for a number of individuals, were studied theoretically with particular reference to component of variance due to interaction between the genetic constitution of the individual and the environment provided by day-to-day food intake. The intra-individual variability was enhanced as a result of the interaction and it was related characteristically with changes in the serial correlation coefficient and the length of the sequence of day-to-day observations. Based on these considerations, it is argued that the strength of the interaction can be measured in terms of the serial correlation coefficient signifying the degree of autoregulatory mechanism in nutrition studies.