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Prevention of Non Communicable Diseases

Posture economy: the importance of metabolic state on metabolic phenotype assessment and the energy cost of sitting and standing. A whole body calorimetry trial

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 76, pages 1178–1185 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background

Metabolic state (fed vs fasted) can result in marked differences in exercise metabolism, fat, and carbohydrate oxidation. In addition, a large inter-individual range in metabolic response to sitting and standing when fasted has been observed. Here, we examined the effect of metabolic state on the energy cost of posture allocation.

Methods

Thirty male participants were recruited and followed a 1 h sit-stand protocol in a fasted and fed state inside a whole body calorimeter to measure energy expenditure (EE) and respiratory quotient (RQ). Body composition and resting metabolic rate were measured before the start. Fasted EE response was used to phenotype participants as energy savers (≤5% ΔEE from sitting to standing) or energy spenders (>5% ΔEE).

Results

In a fasted state, ΔEE from sitting to standing in energy spenders was 10.2 ± 2.7% compared to 2.6 ± 1.9% in energy savers (p < 0.001). Postprandial, there was no difference in ΔEE between energy spenders and energy savers (10.8 ± 5.1% vs 9.4 ± 5.7%). In a fasted state, significant correlations were observed between body fat (%) and ΔEE (%) (R2 = 0.55, p < 0.001), body fat (%) and ΔRQ (R2 = 0.28, p < 0.001) and ΔEE (%) and ΔRQ (R2 = 0.43, p < 0.001); these correlations were not present after the meal.

Conclusions

The current study showed for the first time, that the observed difference between energy spenders and energy savers in a fasted state, disappeared after the consumption of a meal. Therefore, metabolic state may be important to consider when assessing metabolic phenotypes. Differences in body composition were observed between the energy spender and energy saver phenotype. The current findings may have implications on health and weight management recommendations on posture to increase non-exercise activity thermogenesis.

This trial was retrospectively registered on 19 December 2017 as NCT03378115 on Clinicaltrials.gov.

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Fig. 1: Study protocol.
Fig. 2: Mean ± SEM energy expenditure and respiratory quotient for all participants (n = 29) during rest, sitting and standing in a fasted and fed state expressed as kcal/min.
Fig. 3: Distribution and comparison of the changes in energy expenditure and respiratory quotient.
Fig. 4: Observed correlations with changes in energy expenditure and respiratory quotient.

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Data availability

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants for their participation in this study.

Funding

This research was supported by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and there was no additional external financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clinical Nutrition Research Centre (CNRC), Singapore Institute for Food and Biotechnology Innovation (SIFBI), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and National University Health System (NUHS), Centre for Translational Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, 14 Medical Drive #07-02, MD6 Building, Singapore, 117599, Singapore

    Stefan Gerardus Camps, Huann Rong Koh & Christiani Jeyakumar Henry

  2. Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, S14 Level 5, Science Drive 2, Singapore, 117543, Singapore

    Christiani Jeyakumar Henry

Authors
  1. Stefan Gerardus Camps
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Contributions

CJH and SGC conceived and designed the experiments; HRK and SGC performed the experiments; HRK and SGC analyzed the data; SGC wrote the paper; CJH reviewed the paper and had primary responsibility for the final content.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Stefan Gerardus Camps or Christiani Jeyakumar Henry.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests. A*Star did not play a role in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethical approval for all procedures involving human participants was obtained from the National Healthcare Group Domain Specific Review Board (NHG DSRB). The research procedures and trial protocols were followed in accordance to the good clinical practice (GCP) guidelines and with the ethical standards in concordance to the Declaration of Helsinki, 1983. Written informed consent for participation was obtained from all eligible participants before commencement.

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Written informed consent for data publication was obtained from all eligible participants before commencement.

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Camps, S.G., Koh, H.R. & Henry, C.J. Posture economy: the importance of metabolic state on metabolic phenotype assessment and the energy cost of sitting and standing. A whole body calorimetry trial. Eur J Clin Nutr 76, 1178–1185 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-022-01077-7

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