Allometric scaling of mammalian blood pressure: A comment on White and Seymour (2014)

Abstract

White and Seymour examined the scaling of central arterial blood pressure against body mass in mammals ranging in size from a 30 g mouse to a 4080 kg elephant. Exponents in power functions fitted to each of three datasets (systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial pressure) were reported to be significantly greater than zero and indistinguishable from 0.33. The first of these outcomes would indicate that blood pressure increases with body size, whereas the second is consistent with the heart working against gravity to move blood to the head. Taken together, these results seemingly refute the notion that the cephalic circulation functions as an energy-neutral siphon. However, the main findings by White and Seymour were presented in the form of graphs that distorted the relationships between the variables of interest. I use simple graphics to show that the data were unsuited from the outset for use in allometric analyses and that conclusions of the investigation are not well supported.