Research
Energy balance
Increased body fat is associated with elevated resting metabolic rate and protein turnover, even after accounting for lean body mass (total body potassium).
Having more body fat does not mean your metabolism is 'slow' relative to your lean mass. In fact, higher fat mass is associated with higher metabolic rate and protein turnover, even when you account for your lean tissue.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Metabolic rate and protein turnover were highest in the subjects with the greatest amount of body fat, even after accounting for differences in whole body potassium.
Why this rating
Robust correlation (r=0.42-0.46) in a controlled setting, though observational in nature regarding fat mass.
Source
Relationship of resting metabolic rate to body composition and protein turnover
Stephen Welle et al. · American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism · 1990
DOI 10.1152/ajpendo.1990.258.6.e990
cross_sectional · n=47Cited 184×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Resting metabolic rate (RMR) is highly homogeneous in healthy young adults after adjusting for metabolically active tissue (total body potassium), with protein turnover explaining only a small but significant fraction (approx. 20%) of the remaining variability.Good
- Thyroid hormones (T4, T3) and insulin concentrations within the normal euthyroid range do not correlate with resting metabolic rate or protein turnover in healthy young adults.Good
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