Research
Hormonal
Genetic factors contribute to individual differences in NEAT, including the efficiency of movement and the tendency to increase NEAT in response to overfeeding.
Understand that your genetic makeup may influence your natural activity levels. However, this does not mean you are powerless. You can still increase NEAT by modifying your environment and making conscious choices to move more.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
When 12 pairs of twins were overfed by an estimated 84,000 kcal over a period of 100 days, weight and fat gain clustered for 'twinness'; this could only have been through concordant changes in energy expenditure. This in turn was likely to be through NEAT...
Why this rating
Based on twin studies and animal models, but direct human mechanistic data is limited.
Source
Nonexercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT): environment and biology
James A. Levine · American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism · 2004
DOI 10.1152/ajpendo.00562.2003
narrative_reviewCited 205×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Nonexercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) serves as a primary biological regulator of body weight by modulating energy expenditure in response to positive or negative energy balance, thereby counterbalancing fat gain or loss.Good
- Environmental factors, particularly occupation and urbanization, are the primary determinants of NEAT levels, with mechanization and sedentary environments drastically reducing energy expenditure.Good
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