A consensus guide to preclinical indirect calorimetry experiments

Alexander S Banks¹, David B Allison², Thierry Alquier^{3

4}, Ansarullah⁵, Steven N Austad^{6

7}, Johan Auwerx⁸, Julio E Ayala^{9

10}, Joseph A Baur^{11

12}, Stefania Carobbio¹³, Gary A Churchill⁵, Morten Dall¹⁴, Rafael de Cabo¹⁵, Jose Donato Jr¹⁶, Nathalia R V Dragano^{17

18}, Carol F Elias^{19

20}, Anthony W Ferrante Jr²¹, Brian N Finck²², Jose E Galgani^{23

24}, Zachary Gerhart-Hines¹⁴, Laurie J Goodyear²⁵, Justin L Grobe^{26

27

28

29}, Rana K Gupta³⁰, Kirk M Habegger³¹, Sean M Hartig^{32

33

34}, Andrea L Hevener^{35

36}, Steven B Heymsfield³⁷, Corey D Holman³⁸, Martin Hrabě de Angelis^{17

18}, David E James^{39

40

41}, Lawrence Kazak^{42

43}, Jae Bum Kim⁴⁴, Martin Klingenspor⁴⁵, Xingxing Kong⁴⁶, Sander Kooijman^{47

48}, Louise Lantier^{9

10}, K C Kent Lloyd^{49

50}, James C Lo^{51

52

53}, Irfan J Lodhi⁵⁴, Paul S MacLean⁵⁵, Owen P McGuinness¹⁰, Gema Medina-Gómez⁵⁶, Raghavendra G Mirmira⁵⁷, Christopher D Morrison⁵⁸, Gregory J Morton⁵⁹, Timo D Müller^{60

61}, Yoshihiro Ogawa⁶², David Pajuelo-Reguera⁶³, Matthew J Potthoff^{64

65}, Nathan Qi¹⁹, Marc L Reitman⁶⁶, Patrick C N Rensen^{47

48}, Jan Rozman⁶⁷, Jennifer M Rutkowsky⁶⁸, Kei Sakamoto¹⁴, Philipp E Scherer⁶⁹, Gary J Schwartz^{70

71}, Radislav Sedlacek⁶³, Mohammed Selloum⁷², Saame Raza Shaikh⁷³, Shuai Chen^{74

75}, Gerald I Shulman⁷⁶, Vojtěch Škop^{77

78}, Alexander A Soukas^{79

80}, John R Speakman^{81

82

83

84}, Bruce M Spiegelman^{85

86}, Gregory R Steinberg^{87

88}, Katrin J Svensson^{89

90

91}, John P Thyfault^{92

93

94}, Tony Tiganis^{95

96}, Paul M Titchenell^{11

12}, Nigel Turner^{97

98}, Licio A Velloso⁹⁹, Antonio Vidal-Puig^{100

101

102

103}, Christopher S Ward¹⁰⁴, Ashley S Williams³⁰, Christian Wolfrum¹⁰⁵, Allison W Xu^{106

107}, Ying Xu¹⁰⁸, Juleen R Zierath^{14

109

110}; International Indirect Calorimetry Consensus Committee (IICCC)

Affiliations

¹ Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. asbanks@bidmc.harvard.edu.
² Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA.
³ Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CRCHUM), Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁴ Department of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁵ The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME, USA.
⁶ Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
⁷ American Federation for Aging Research, New York, NY, USA.
⁸ Laboratory of Integrative Systems Physiology, Institute of Bioengineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
⁹ Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA.
¹⁰ Vanderbilt Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
¹¹ Department of Physiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
¹² Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
¹³ Centro de Investigación Principe Felipe, Valencia, Spain.
¹⁴ Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
¹⁵ Translational Gerontology Branch, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Baltimore, MD, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
¹⁷ Institute of Experimental Genetics - German Mouse Clinic, Helmholtz Zentrum, Munich, Germany.
¹⁸ German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), Neuherberg, Germany.
¹⁹ Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
²⁰ Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
²¹ Department of Medicine, Institute of Human Nutrition, Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
²² Center for Human Nutrition, Division of Nutritional Sciences and Obesity Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.
²³ Departamento de Nutrición y Dietética, Escuela de Ciencias de la Salud, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
²⁴ Departamento de Nutrición, Diabetes y Metabolismo, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
²⁵ Section on Integrative Physiology and Metabolism, Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
²⁶ Department of Physiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
²⁷ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
²⁸ Cardiovascular Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
²⁹ Comprehensive Rodent Metabolic Phenotyping Core, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
³⁰ Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine, Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
³¹ Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
³² Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
³³ Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
³⁴ Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
³⁵ Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³⁶ VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System GRECC, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³⁷ Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
³⁸ Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
³⁹ The Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁴⁰ School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁴¹ School of Medical Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁴² Rosalind & Morris Goodman Cancer Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁴³ Department of Biochemistry, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁴⁴ Center for Adipocyte Structure and Function, Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics, School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
⁴⁵ School of Life Sciences, Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Nutritional Medicine, ZIEL Institute for Food & Health, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany.
⁴⁶ School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
⁴⁷ Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
⁴⁸ Einthoven Laboratory for Experimental Vascular Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
⁴⁹ Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
⁵⁰ Mouse Biology Program, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
⁵¹ Weill Center for Metabolic Health, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
⁵² Cardiovascular Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
⁵³ Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
⁵⁴ Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism & Lipid Research, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, MO, USA.
⁵⁵ Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes, School of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Colorado, CO, USA.
⁵⁶ Área de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Departamento de Ciencias Básicas de la Salud, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain.
⁵⁷ Department of Medicine, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
⁵⁸ Pennington Biomedical Research Center, LSU System, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
⁵⁹ University of Washington Medicine Diabetes Institute, Department of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁶⁰ Institute for Diabetes and Obesity, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany.
⁶¹ Walther-Straub Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.
⁶² Department of Medicine and Bioregulatory Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
⁶³ Czech Centre for Phenogenomics, Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Vestec, Czechia.
⁶⁴ Harold Hamm Diabetes Center, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences, Oklahoma City, OK, USA.
⁶⁵ Department of Biochemistry and Physiology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences, Oklahoma City, OK, USA.
⁶⁶ Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Obesity Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.
⁶⁷ Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
⁶⁸ Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
⁶⁹ Touchstone Diabetes Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
⁷⁰ Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
⁷¹ Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
⁷² Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, INSERM, CELPHEDIA, PHENOMIN, Institut Clinique de la Souris, Illkirch, France.
⁷³ Department of Nutrition, Gillings School of Global Public Health and School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁷⁴ State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Model Animal Research Center, Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
⁷⁵ Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Model Animal for Disease Study, Model Animal Research Center, Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
⁷⁶ Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁷⁷ Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, Czechia.
⁷⁸ Centre for Experimental Medicine, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czechia.
⁷⁹ Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁸⁰ Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁸¹ School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.
⁸² Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Metabolic Health, Center for Energy Metabolism and Reproduction, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
⁸³ Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁸⁴ Institute of Health Sciences, China Medical University, Shenyang, China.
⁸⁵ Department of Cancer Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA.
⁸⁶ Department of Cell Biology, Harvard University Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁸⁷ Centre for Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
⁸⁸ Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
⁸⁹ Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁹⁰ Stanford Diabetes Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁹¹ Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁹² Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, USA.
⁹³ Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, USA.
⁹⁴ KU Diabetes Institute, Kansas City, KS, USA.
⁹⁵ Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
⁹⁶ Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
⁹⁷ Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia.
⁹⁸ Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁹⁹ Obesity and Comorbidities Research Center, University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil.
¹⁰⁰ MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK.
¹⁰¹ Cambridge University Nanjing Centre of Technology and Innovation, Nanjing, PR China.
¹⁰² Centro de Investigacion Principe Felipe (CIPF), Valencia, Spain.
¹⁰³ Cambridge Heart and Lung Research Institute, Cambridge, UK.
¹⁰⁴ Department of Integrative Physiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
¹⁰⁵ Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹⁰⁶ Diabetes Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
¹⁰⁷ Department of Anatomy, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
¹⁰⁸ Cambridge-Su Genomic Resource Center, The Fourth Affiliated Hospital, Medical School of Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
¹⁰⁹ Section of Integrative Physiology, Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
¹¹⁰ Section of Integrative Physiology, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

PMID: 40993210
DOI: 10.1038/s42255-025-01360-4

Review

A consensus guide to preclinical indirect calorimetry experiments

Alexander S Banks et al. Nat Metab. 2025 Sep.

. 2025 Sep;7(9):1765-1780.

doi: 10.1038/s42255-025-01360-4. Epub 2025 Sep 24.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. asbanks@bidmc.harvard.edu.
² Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA.
³ Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CRCHUM), Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁴ Department of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁵ The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME, USA.
⁶ Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
⁷ American Federation for Aging Research, New York, NY, USA.
⁸ Laboratory of Integrative Systems Physiology, Institute of Bioengineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
⁹ Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA.
¹⁰ Vanderbilt Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
¹¹ Department of Physiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
¹² Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
¹³ Centro de Investigación Principe Felipe, Valencia, Spain.
¹⁴ Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
¹⁵ Translational Gerontology Branch, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Baltimore, MD, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
¹⁷ Institute of Experimental Genetics - German Mouse Clinic, Helmholtz Zentrum, Munich, Germany.
¹⁸ German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), Neuherberg, Germany.
¹⁹ Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
²⁰ Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
²¹ Department of Medicine, Institute of Human Nutrition, Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
²² Center for Human Nutrition, Division of Nutritional Sciences and Obesity Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.
²³ Departamento de Nutrición y Dietética, Escuela de Ciencias de la Salud, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
²⁴ Departamento de Nutrición, Diabetes y Metabolismo, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
²⁵ Section on Integrative Physiology and Metabolism, Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
²⁶ Department of Physiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
²⁷ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
²⁸ Cardiovascular Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
²⁹ Comprehensive Rodent Metabolic Phenotyping Core, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
³⁰ Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine, Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
³¹ Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
³² Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
³³ Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
³⁴ Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
³⁵ Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³⁶ VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System GRECC, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³⁷ Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
³⁸ Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
³⁹ The Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁴⁰ School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁴¹ School of Medical Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁴² Rosalind & Morris Goodman Cancer Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁴³ Department of Biochemistry, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁴⁴ Center for Adipocyte Structure and Function, Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics, School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
⁴⁵ School of Life Sciences, Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Nutritional Medicine, ZIEL Institute for Food & Health, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany.
⁴⁶ School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
⁴⁷ Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
⁴⁸ Einthoven Laboratory for Experimental Vascular Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
⁴⁹ Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
⁵⁰ Mouse Biology Program, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
⁵¹ Weill Center for Metabolic Health, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
⁵² Cardiovascular Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
⁵³ Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
⁵⁴ Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism & Lipid Research, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, MO, USA.
⁵⁵ Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes, School of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Colorado, CO, USA.
⁵⁶ Área de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Departamento de Ciencias Básicas de la Salud, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain.
⁵⁷ Department of Medicine, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
⁵⁸ Pennington Biomedical Research Center, LSU System, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
⁵⁹ University of Washington Medicine Diabetes Institute, Department of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁶⁰ Institute for Diabetes and Obesity, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany.
⁶¹ Walther-Straub Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.
⁶² Department of Medicine and Bioregulatory Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
⁶³ Czech Centre for Phenogenomics, Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Vestec, Czechia.
⁶⁴ Harold Hamm Diabetes Center, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences, Oklahoma City, OK, USA.
⁶⁵ Department of Biochemistry and Physiology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences, Oklahoma City, OK, USA.
⁶⁶ Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Obesity Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.
⁶⁷ Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
⁶⁸ Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
⁶⁹ Touchstone Diabetes Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
⁷⁰ Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
⁷¹ Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
⁷² Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, INSERM, CELPHEDIA, PHENOMIN, Institut Clinique de la Souris, Illkirch, France.
⁷³ Department of Nutrition, Gillings School of Global Public Health and School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁷⁴ State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Model Animal Research Center, Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
⁷⁵ Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Model Animal for Disease Study, Model Animal Research Center, Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
⁷⁶ Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁷⁷ Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, Czechia.
⁷⁸ Centre for Experimental Medicine, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czechia.
⁷⁹ Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁸⁰ Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁸¹ School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.
⁸² Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Metabolic Health, Center for Energy Metabolism and Reproduction, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
⁸³ Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁸⁴ Institute of Health Sciences, China Medical University, Shenyang, China.
⁸⁵ Department of Cancer Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA.
⁸⁶ Department of Cell Biology, Harvard University Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁸⁷ Centre for Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
⁸⁸ Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
⁸⁹ Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁹⁰ Stanford Diabetes Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁹¹ Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁹² Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, USA.
⁹³ Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, USA.
⁹⁴ KU Diabetes Institute, Kansas City, KS, USA.
⁹⁵ Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
⁹⁶ Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
⁹⁷ Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia.
⁹⁸ Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁹⁹ Obesity and Comorbidities Research Center, University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil.
¹⁰⁰ MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK.
¹⁰¹ Cambridge University Nanjing Centre of Technology and Innovation, Nanjing, PR China.
¹⁰² Centro de Investigacion Principe Felipe (CIPF), Valencia, Spain.
¹⁰³ Cambridge Heart and Lung Research Institute, Cambridge, UK.
¹⁰⁴ Department of Integrative Physiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
¹⁰⁵ Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹⁰⁶ Diabetes Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
¹⁰⁷ Department of Anatomy, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
¹⁰⁸ Cambridge-Su Genomic Resource Center, The Fourth Affiliated Hospital, Medical School of Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
¹⁰⁹ Section of Integrative Physiology, Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
¹¹⁰ Section of Integrative Physiology, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

PMID: 40993210
DOI: 10.1038/s42255-025-01360-4

Abstract

Understanding the complex factors influencing mammalian metabolism and body weight homeostasis is a long-standing challenge requiring knowledge of energy intake, absorption and expenditure. Using measurements of respiratory gas exchange, indirect calorimetry can provide non-invasive estimates of whole-body energy expenditure. However, inconsistent measurement units and flawed data normalization methods have slowed progress in this field. This guide aims to establish consensus standards to unify indirect calorimetry experiments and their analysis for more consistent, meaningful and reproducible results. By establishing community-driven standards, we hope to facilitate data comparison across research datasets. This advance will allow the creation of an in-depth, machine-readable data repository built on shared standards. This overdue initiative stands to markedly improve the accuracy and depth of efforts to interrogate mammalian metabolism. Data sharing according to established best practices will also accelerate the translation of basic findings into clinical applications for metabolic diseases afflicting global populations.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: M.D., K.S. and J.R.Z. organized an indirect calorimetry course, and travel was provided to C.D.H. as an indirect calorimetry course guest lecturer by Sable Systems International. J.R.S. consults for TSE International. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

References

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A consensus guide to preclinical indirect calorimetry experiments

Affiliations

A consensus guide to preclinical indirect calorimetry experiments

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

References

Publication types

MeSH terms