Administration of a substance for the purpose of testing metabolic function. Loading is the act of placing a force or burden upon an object or network. More specifically, loading may refer to: In biology: * Carbohydrate loading, a strategy employed by endurance athletes to maximize the storage of glycogen in the muscles * Vocal loading, the stress inflicted on the speech organs when speaking for long periods in engineering: * Application of a structural load to a system ** Disk loading, the pressure maintained over the swept area of a helicopter's rotor ** Seismic loading, one of the basic concepts of earthquake engineering ** Wing loading, the loaded weight of an aircraft divided by the area of its wing * Loading characteristic, a measure of traffic on a telephone system * Insertion of an electrical load into a circuit ** Use of a loading coil to increase inductance Other uses: * Task loading, the number of tasks taken on by a diver. An OSH glossary used in safety and health at work which is, adopted by ILO