In metabolic studies using rodents, body weight and food intake measurements seem easy to obtain, but several potential pitfalls can lead to erroneous data generation and interpretation. This Comment raises awareness of key conceptual and technical aspects that can increase the quality and reproducibility of this type of data.
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Acknowledgements
The authors receive support from INSERM (D.C., P.Z., C.Q.), Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-18-CE14-0029, ANR-21-CE14-0018 to D.C.; ANR-20-CE14-0046 to C.Q.), University of Bordeaux’s IdEx ‘Investments for the Future’ program/GPR BRAIN_2030 (D.C.) and the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (to C.A., FRM-ARF201809006962). C.Q. is also supported by the Société Francophone du Diabète, Société Française d’Endocrinologie, Société Française de Nutrition, Institut Benjamin Delessert and the Fyssen Foundation.
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C.A., P.Z., C.Q. and D.C. wrote the manuscript. C.A. and P.Z. generated the figure and the table.
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Allard, C., Zizzari, P., Quarta, C. et al. Food intake and body weight in rodent studies: the devil is in the details. Nat Metab 4, 1424–1426 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-022-00658-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-022-00658-x