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Progress and challenges in analyzing rodent energy expenditure

Nature Methods volume 16, pages 797–799 (2019)Cite this article

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Whole-body energy expenditure is the summed metabolic activities of tissues and, to remove the influence of body size, ratios of energy expenditure to body mass are often applied but can generate spurious differences. In 2011, a group of experts proposed adoption of ANCOVA for the analysis of metabolic rate but, seven years later, analyses based on ratios remain the most frequent. We discuss some of the barriers to adopting better analytical procedures.

In humans, average body mass index has increased over the last few decades1. This is mostly explained by a shift towards the right in the distribution of individuals with larger body mass, while body mass of leaner individuals has remained unaltered2. Such heterogeneous propensity to weight-gain prompts the search for factors that alter the energy balance.

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Fig. 1: Analytical aspects in rodent metabolic studies.

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Acknowledgements

R.F.V. was supported by Fondecyt #11180361 (Conicyt, Chile). J.E.G was supported by Fondecyt #1170117 (Conicyt, Chile).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ciencias de la Salud, Carrera de Nutrición y Dietética, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Rodrigo Fernández-Verdejo & Jose E. Galgani

  2. Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    Eric Ravussin

  3. Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Zoology Building, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

    John R. Speakman

  4. Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    John R. Speakman

  5. Departamento de Nutrición, Diabetes y Metabolismo, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Jose E. Galgani

Authors
  1. Rodrigo Fernández-Verdejo
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  2. Eric Ravussin
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  3. John R. Speakman
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  4. Jose E. Galgani
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Contributions

J.E.G., E.R. and J.R.S. conceived the work. R.F.V. and J.E.G. designed, acquired and analyzed the data, and drafted the manuscript. All authors interpreted the data, substantively reviewed the manuscript, approved the submitted version and agreed to be personally accountable for their contributions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jose E. Galgani.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Table 1. Retrieved articles analyzing energy expenditure in mice and published between July 2012 and June 2018. Related to Fig. 1b.

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Fernández-Verdejo, R., Ravussin, E., Speakman, J.R. et al. Progress and challenges in analyzing rodent energy expenditure. Nat Methods 16, 797–799 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-019-0513-9

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