Standardizing the analysis and visualization of human energy expenditure data

Adjusting energy expenditure for body composition and visualizing the results are key to understanding the role of energy expenditure in human physiology and disease. Here, we outline specific analysis of covariance modelling and the design of partial residual plots optimized for analysing human energy expenditure data.

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Subjects

• Obesity
• Research data
• Metabolism

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Acknowledgements

K.F. received funding from the American Heart Association (25POST1365227); J.E.G. received funding from the ANID/CONICYT FONDECYT Regular 1220551. The work was supported by the Pennington/Louisiana NORC Biorepository (https://doi.org/10.17616/R31NJN8P), which is funded in part by the Nutrition Obesity Research Center grant P30 DK072476.

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Nature Metabolism thanks Dominik Lutter and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Fernández-Verdejo, R., Falkenhain, K., Galgani, J.E. et al. Standardizing the analysis and visualization of human energy expenditure data.
Nat Metab8, 279–281 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-025-01445-0

• Version of record:16 January 2026

• DOI
  :https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-025-01445-0