Whole Body Calorimeter

The HMRU houses two of the world’s most advanced Whole Body Calorimeters, through which detailed 24 hour energy profiles can be generated for an individual. Knowledge of an individual’s energy expenditure in such detail allows new avenues of metabolic research with the potential to develop new treatments and drugs.

The Whole Body Calorimeter has many uses, including:

• Understanding how food, physical activity and other aspects of behaviour, including sleep, affect our ability to control body weight gain
• Investigating real-time changes in metabolic function associated with diabetes and obesity and their treatment
• In clinical trials for novel nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals
• Measuring the carbon dioxide produced and oxygen consumed by volunteers;
  making it possible to determine their energy expenditure. When combined with additional measurements (for example, urine samples) researchers can determine
  the type of macronutrients (e.g. fat, carbohydrates or protein) that are used to create that energy.

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