Research

Energy balance

Standardized validation protocols, including regular combustion or gas infusion tests, are required to ensure the accuracy and precision of whole-room indirect calorimetry systems for measuring human energy expenditure.

If you are using a whole-room calorimeter, you must validate its performance regularly using traceable standards (like combustion or gas infusion) and report these validation results (accuracy, precision, zero tests) in your publications. This ensures your energy expenditure data is comparable across studies and laboratories.

StrongSupportsVERY_HIGH confidence
The panel recommends regular calibration of all calorimeter system components to traceable standards... We recommend reporting gas exchange rates... as primary outcomes for these validation tests... The panel also recommends regular system validation using combustion as a minimum standard.
Kong Y. Chen et al. · Obesity · 2020

Why this rating

This is a consensus guideline from an international panel of experts, representing the highest level of methodological agreement in the field.

Source

Room Indirect Calorimetry Operating and Reporting Standards (RICORS 1.0): A Guide to Conducting and Reporting Human Whole‐Room Calorimeter Studies

Kong Y. Chen et al. · Obesity · 2020

DOI 10.1002/oby.22928

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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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