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Metabolism promotes excellence in research by publishing
high-quality original research papers, fast-tracking
cutting-edge
papers, research brief reports, mini-reviews, and other special
articles related to all aspects of human metabolism. Work
considered
for publication in Metabolism includes studies in humans,
animal and cellular models. Work with strong translational
potential is prioritized. Metabolism will consider papers for publication
in any aspect of translational and clinical metabolic
research, including (but not limited to):
- • Energy Expenditure and Obesity
• Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes
• Nutrition, Exercise, and the Environment
• Genetics, Proteomics, and Metabolomics
• Carbohydrate, Lipid, and
Protein Metabolism
• Endocrinology and Hypertension
• Mineral and Bone Metabolism
C• ardiovascular Diseases
and Malignancies
Editorial Process
Metabolism publishes several categories of articles; all
submissions
must conform to the journal's reporting and style
requirements and must be written in standard scientific English
language. New submissions,
except for solicited articles (eg,
mini-reviews, commentaries), will be initially evaluated in depth
by the editorial team that will
decide on the overall quality of the
work and its suitability for Metabolism. Manuscripts that do not
conform to the general
criteria for publication will be returned to
the authors without detailed review, typically within 14 days.
This will facilitate prompt
notification of authors and will allow
expedited resubmission of the authors' work elsewhere.
Otherwise, manuscripts will be sent for
formal review immediately.
The editorial board will make every effort to reach initial
decision on these manuscripts within 4-6 weeks
from the submission
date. If revisions are a condition of publication, ~8
weeks will be provided to re-submit a revised version of the
manuscript. Accepted manuscripts will generally be published
no later than 4 months from acceptance. The journal does not
require submission
or publication charges.
Editorial Principles and Policies
Only material that has not been published previously (either
in
print or electronically) and is not under consideration for
publication elsewhere, with the exception of an abstract that is
less than
500 words in length, will be considered for publication.
Prior presentation of data (eg, at a scientific meeting) does not
preclude publication
in Metabolism, but should be mentioned
during the submission process, and, if requested by the Editor,
submitted along with
the manuscript as supporting information.
Submission of a manuscript to this journal gives the publisher
the right to publish that
paper if it is accepted. Manuscripts
may be edited to improve clarity and expression. Submission of
a paper to Metabolism is
understood to imply that it has not previously
been published and that it is not being considered for
publication elsewhere.
The corresponding
author is responsible for ensuring that all
authors have agreed to the manuscript's content and its submission
to Metabolism.
Furthermore, authors must declare any conflict
of interest in their cover letter and in the acknowledgements section
of the manuscript.
The corresponding author will be asked to
sign a form on behalf of all the authors regarding potential
conflicts of interest at the time
of acceptance.
All human investigation must be conducted according to the
principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. All
studies involving animals must state that guidelines for the use and care
of laboratory animals of the authors' institution or the National
Research Council or any national law were followed. In the
manuscript a statement identifying the committees that approved
the studies
must be included in the methods section.
Patients and Study Participants
Studies on patients or volunteers require
ethics committee
approval and informed consent, which should be documented in
your paper.
Patients have a right to privacy. Therefore,
identifying information,
including patient's photographs, pedigrees, images, names,
initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included
in the submissions
unless the information is essential for scientific purposes
and written informed consent has been obtained for publication
in print and electronic form from the patient (or parent, guardian
or next of kin). If such consent is made subject to any conditions,
Elsevier must be made aware of all such conditions. Written
consents must be provided to the journal on request.
Even where consent
has been given, identifying details should
be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult
to achieve. For example,
masking the eye region in photographs
of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying
characteristics are altered to
protect anonymity, such as in genetic
pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations
do not distort evidence of scientific
interpretation and editors
should so note.
Clinical Trials
All randomized controlled trials submitted to Metabolism
whose primary purpose is to affect clinical practice (phase 3 trials)
must be registered in accordance with the principles outlined by
the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE;
 http://www.icmje.org/ ). ICMJE -approved registries currently
include the following: ClinicalTrials.gov; www.ISRCTN.org;
www.actr.org;
www.umin.ac.jp; and www.trialregister.nl.
The
unique trial number and registry name should be included on the
title page of the manuscript.
The authors should be willing to
distribute any materials and
protocols used in the published experiments in Metabolism. The
materials include but are not limited
to plasmids, antibodies,
reagents and mouse strains. In addition, microarray data must be
deposited to public databases and an accession
number must be
included in the methods section of the final version of the manuscript.
Submission Guidelines
Metabolism
uses a web-based manuscript submission and peerreview
system. All submissions must be made electronically
at the journal's online submission
website ( http://ees.elsevier.com/metabolism). The system guides authors stepwise through
all required stages of the submission
process.
All submissions, except for solicited articles, must be accompanied
by a cover letter requesting that the manuscript be evaluated
for publication, briefly explaining the importance of the submitted
work. Authors of fast-track papers should include a detailed cover
letter explaining the reasons why their paper should be considered
as such; the editors will then decide, usually within 14 days, whether
the paper will be classified in this category, or offer the authors
the alternative to submit as a regular paper or submit elsewhere.
Papers will be considered on the understanding that all authors
contributed significantly to the reported research, approved the
final
version of the submitted manuscript, confirmed that the
reported work is original and accurate, and agreed to transfer
copyright of their
paper to Elsevier. Authors may suggest up to 4 specific expert reviewers (who should be from different
institutions and should have not
published a joint paper with any
of the authors within the past 2 years) and request the exclusion
of up to 2 others (mentioning the
reasons for exclusion); however
the final choice of reviewers rests with the editor. During the submission
process, the corresponding
author must confirm that she
or he has secured all of the above requirements.
Authors are encouraged to submit a single manuscript
file for
the initial submission, including title page, abstract, text, embedded
tables and figures. During revision, authors will be
required to
submit original files separately. The journal reserves the right to edit
the manuscript for clarity and presentation and
as per house style.
Manuscript Preparation
General reporting and style requirements
Manuscripts must
be written in English, and largely conform
to the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to
Biomedical Journals," developed
by the International Committee
of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Authors should write for
a sophisticated readership, follow principles
of clear scientific
writing and statistical reporting, and prepare manuscripts
according to recommended reporting guidelines and checklists,
when applicable.
All manuscripts must be submitted in a single-column format.
Text should be unjustified (left-aligned), double-spaced
throughout,
with 1-inch (2.5-cm) margins on all sides using 12-point type in
Times New Roman font (or equivalent). All pages should be
numbered consecutively on the lower right corners, and all lines
should be numbered consecutively throughout the entire manuscript,
starting
from the title page. All tables and figures must be
mentioned in the text and placed at the end of the manuscript,
clearly labeled.
All articles must be accompanied by a title page, which
should include:
- A full title of up to 200 characters, without spaces.
- Authors' full names. At least one person must be listed as an
author; no group authorship is allowed without a responsible
party. A group can be listed in the authorship line, but only on
behalf of a person or persons. All group members not listed in
the authorship
line must be listed in the Acknowledgments.
- Authors' affiliations corresponding to superscripts used in
conjunction to authors'
full names above for identification.
- One author identified as the corresponding author, providing
full contact details (e-mail
and ground mail addresses, telephone
and fax numbers).
- A short page-heading of up to 40 characters without spaces
-
Word count of text, abstract, number of references, and number
of tables and figures.
- A disclosure statement summarizing potential
conflicts
of interest.
- Clinical Trial Registration Number, if applicable.
Immediately following the title page,
all articles, except for
editorials and commentaries, must include a structured abstract
of up to 250 words. The information reported
in the abstract
must summarize the rationale of the study, the methods, the principal
findings and their interpretation or implications;
or provide
a succinct summary in the case of mini-reviews. The abstract
should be divided into the following sections: Objective,
Materials/Methods,
Results, Conclusions. The abstract should
not include references and abbreviations should be kept to a
minimum. No abstract is required
for commentaries and editorials.
At the end of the abstract, 3-5 key words, which do not appear
in the title of the paper, must be
provided for indexing purposes
and information retrieval.
Immediately following the abstract, a list of abbreviations
used in the
manuscript must be provided.
Original Research Papers
These manuscripts describe original research findings. They
should
be no longer than 4000 words, excluding the title page,
abstract, references, tables, and figure legends, but including the
abbreviation
list, acknowledgements, funding, disclosure statement,
and author contributions. They should contain no more
than 10 tables and figures
combined and no more than 60
references. Their final accepted version should, in general,
not exceed 8 printed journal pages; additional
information
may be included as a supplementary appendix, to be
published online.
These articles should include the following sections:
- Introduction, including the background and rationale of
the study.
- Methods, in adequate detail to permit reproduction
of
the research.
- Results, using subheadings if required.
- Discussion, including the interpretation and implications
of
the findings.
- Acknowledgements, stating the names of those people who
contributed to the study but did not meet the requirements
for authorship.
- Funding, including all sources of financial support for
the study.
- Disclosure statement, summarizing
potential conflicts of interest
with any of the authors, or mentioning that there are none.
- Author contributions, describing
the contribution of each
author in the design and conduct of the study, data collection and
analysis, data interpretation and manuscript
writing.
- References
- Tables
- Figure legends
- Figures
Fast-Track Papers
These manuscripts describe original research findings of
exceptional novelty and importance, usually in a rapidly growing
and competitive
field. The requirements are the same as for original
research articles. Fast-track articles are usually peerreviewed
within 2-3 weeks
from submission and authors will be
given up to 4 weeks for revisions; should these papers be accepted,
articles will be published online
within 4 weeks and appear in
print in the next available issue of the journal.
Brief Reports
These manuscripts describe
limited but novel, focused and
straightforward original research findings. Preliminary data,
pilot studies, case reports, case series,
or studies with small
sample sizes do not usually qualify, unless they are of
exceptional quality, utilize novel methodologies, or report
findings
that can form the basis of future, more definitive studies
and/or are of great interest to the journal's readership.
They should
be no longer than 1500 words, excluding the title
page, abstract, references, tables, and figure legends, but including
the abbreviation
list, acknowledgements, funding, disclosure
statement, and author contributions. They should contain no
more than 2 tables and figures
combined and no more than 20
references. Their final accepted version should, in general, not
exceed 3 printed journal pages; no additional
information may
be included. Other than the length, the requirements and review
process are the same as for original research papers.
Methods Papers
These manuscripts describe the development of novel
methodologies in the field of metabolic research, including
significant refinements of well-established techniques. They should be concise but detailed enough so that the method can
be readily
reproduced. Methodologies utilizing proprietary,
non-commercially available tools (whether by the authors themselves
or an independent
vendor) will not be considered. The
requirements and review process are the same as for original
research articles.
Meta-analyses
These articles systematically find, select, critique, and synthesize
evidence relevant to well-defined questions in metabolic
research.
Meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials should
follow PRISMA reporting guidelines and checklist, whereas
those of observational
studies should follow MOOSE reporting
guidelines and checklist. The requirements and review process
are the same as for original research
articles. Additional information
(including references to disqualified papers and study
summary tables) should be included as a supplementary
appendix,
to be published online.
Mini-reviews
These articles are solicited by the journal editors, and summarize
salient
literature that appeared over the past few years;
they describe important new clinical research, or basic and translational
research
that has direct relevance to human metabolism.
They may be divided under liberal headings and subheadings,
and should be no longer than
3000 words, excluding the title
page, abstract, references, tables, and figure legends, but including
the abbreviation list, acknowledgements,
funding, and disclosure
statement (if applicable); no author contributions are
required. They should contain no more than 6 tables and
figures
combined and no more than 50 references. Their final accepted
version should not exceed 6 printed journal pages. The editors
may modify these requirements at the time of invitation, depending
on the amount of published research and the width of the
field intended
to be covered. These articles are not pre-screened
and are usually reviewed by members of the editorial board.
Commentaries
These articles are solicited by the journal editors and concisely
address a timely or controversial issue of importance to
the journal's
readership, usually in response to work that has
been published in the journal (typically, they are published in the
same issue). They
should be unstructured (without headings)
and should be no longer than 1000 words, excluding the title page,
references, tables, and
figure legends, but including the abbreviation
list, acknowledgements, funding, and disclosure statement
(if applicable); no abstract
or author contributions are required.
They should contain no more than 2 tables and figures combined
and no more than 30 references.
Their final accepted version should,
in general, not exceed 2 printed journal pages; no additional information
may be included. These
articles are not pre-screened
and are usually reviewed by members of the editorial board.
Editorials
These articles are
written by the journal editors or by invited
authors. The requirements and review process are the same as
for commentaries, although
the scope of the articles may be
more liberal.
Letters
These articles are unsolicited short commentaries related to
specific
points of agreement or disagreement with the work that
has been published recently in the journal (namely, in the past 3
issues). They
should be no longer than 500 words (all inclusive),
contain no more than 1 table or figure, and no more than 15
references. Accepted
letters will only appear online, not in print.
References
Within the manuscript text, references to the literature
should
be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals in brackets
(eg, [7]), in the order in which they first appear, and should be
listed in the same numerical order at the end of the manuscript.
Multiple references should be separated by a comma and a space
(eg,
[7, 8]) unless there are more than 3 consecutive references,
in which case they should be grouped (eg, [7-9]). References
cited in a
table or figure should also appear in the text, where the
respective table or figure is mentioned (eg Table 1 [7, 9-11, 15]).
In the
reference list, all authors (last name, first and middle
initials) should be listed when there are 3 or fewer; when there
are 4 authors
or more, the first 3 should be listed followed by "et
al." The full title of the work should be cited. Journal names
should be abbreviated
according to Index Medicus and appear
italicized, followed by the year, volume, issue and/or supplement
in parenthesis (if applicable),
and the full range of pages.
Articles accepted for publication but not yet published should
appear in the same format, with the DOI;
if no DOI has been
assigned yet, the authors should add the phrase "in press" and
provide a copy of the accepted version of that paper
as supporting
information along with their submission.
Unpublished material may not be cited in the reference list;
it should only
be mentioned in the text, properly identified with
the name of the investigator(s), the phrase "unpublished data"
and the year of the
observation. The authors should provide a
letter from those investigator(s) (who may or may not be
authoring the manuscript) affirming
the accuracy of the unpublished
material.
The author(s) are responsible for the accuracy of references.
Examples of references for
journal articles as well as other
source material are shown below.
Journal articles:
1 Lusk G. The calorimeter as the interpreter
of the life processes.
Science 1915;42(1093):816-9.
2 Harris JA, Benedict FG. A biometric study of human basal
metabolism. Proc Natl
Acad Sci U S A 1918;4:370-3.
3 Krebs HA. Metabolism of amino acids and proteins. Annu
Rev Biochem 1938;7:189-210.
4 Keys A, Anderson
JT, Aresu M, et al. Physical activity and the
diet in populations differing in serum cholesterol. J Clin
Invest 1956;35:1173-81.
5
Bjorntorp P, Sjostrom L. Carbohydrate storage in man: speculations
and some quantitative considerations. Metabolism
1978;27(12
Suppl 2):1853-65.
6 Lai YH, Chien Y, Kwok CF, et al. Enhanced long-chain
fatty acid uptake contributes to overaccumulation of
triglyceride
in hyperinsulinemic insulin-resistant 3T3-L1
adipocytes. Metabolism 2010; doi: 10.1016/j.metabol.
2010.1005.1007.
Authored
books:
1 Frayn KN. Metabolic regulation: a human perspective. 2nd
edn. Oxford: Blackwell Science; 2003.
2 Montoye HJ, Kemper HCG,
Saris WHM, et al. Measuring
physical activity and energy expenditure. Champaign, IL:
Human Kinetics; 1996.
Note: Book title should
appear in normal font, and in
sentence case.
Edited books:
1 Bjorntorp P, ed. International textbook of obesity. Chichester:
John Wiley & Sons; 2001.
2 Reilly T, Secher N, Snell P, Williams C, eds. Physiology of
sports. London: E & FN Spon; 1990.
Note: Book title should appear in normal font, and in
sentence case. The name of all editors should be given.
Book sections:
1 Roth J, Kahn CR, De Meyts P, et al. Receptors for insulin and
other peptide hormones in disease states. In: Bajaj JS, ed.
Insulin
and metabolism. Amsterdam: Elsevier/North-Holland
Biomedical Press; 1977:73-9.
2 Wolfe RR, Klein S. Assessment of the control of the
triglyceride/
fatty acid cycle. In: Chapman TE, Berger R, Reijngoud DJ,
Okken A, eds. Stable isotopes in paediatric nutritional and
metabolic
research. Andover: Intercept; 1990:115-22.
Note: Chapter title should appear in normal font, and in
sentence case. The name of
all editors should be given. Book
title should appear in normal font and in sentence case.
Proceedings:
1 Havel RJ. Triglyceride
and very low density lipoprotein
turnover. In: Cowgill G, Estrich DL, Wood PD, eds.
Proceedings of the 1968 Deuel Conference on Lipids
on the
Turnover of Lipids and Lipoproteins. Bethesda, MD: U.S.
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, National
Institutes of Health,
National Institute of Arthritis and
Metabolic Diseases; 1968:117-30.
2 Fredrickson DS, Gordon RS, Jr. Metabolism of albuminbound
labeled
fatty acids in man [abstract]. J Clin Invest
1957;36(6 Pt 1):890.
Note: If the book of abstracts is unedited, the editors section
in the citation may be excluded. Posters published in journal
special issues or supplements should be cited like journal articles,
rather
than conference proceedings, and denoted as an abstract
(within brackets) at the end of the title.
Electronic sources:
Beck
M. Eating to live or living to eat? Assessed at
http://online.wsj.com on 13 July 2010.
Tables
Tables should be double-spaced, with
their number and a
concise heading indicated above. Each table must be intelligible
without reference to the text. Footnotes at the bottom
of the
table should contain information about the type of data presented
(eg, means and standard deviations, medians and quartiles,
frequencies,
95% confidence intervals), a brief note on the
statistical analyses performed, and the abbreviations used
(if any); footnotes referring
to specific cells may be numbered
consecutively by using alphabetical superscripts (a, b, c, etc.).
Only the following symbols should
be used as superscripts to
indicate grouped levels of statistical significance, always in this
order: *,†, ‡, §, ¶; no more than these 5 symbols may be used.
Alternatively the authors may opt to show exact P-values for all
comparisons
presented in separate columns or rows. The width
of the table must be designed to occupy 1 or 2 journal columns,
with no more than 5
or 10 columns, respectively. Tables should be
constructed by using the specialized table creation tools and
functions available within
word processing programs; tabs,
multiple spaces, etc., should not be used to create tables, columns,
or rows. During the initial submission,
tables should be embedded
within the manuscript text. During revision, tables should be
submitted as clearly named separate files (i.e.,
Table 1, Table 2, etc.).
Figures
Each figure must have a corresponding legend with the figure
number, a concise heading, and details
about the data presented
(same as in table footnotes), being intelligible without reference
to the text. Figure legends should be clearly
numbered and
included at the end of the manuscript, after the tables, and should
not be included on the figure or image files themselves.
Key
information should either be included in the figure legend (using
words, eg, white bars: placebo; solid line: before treatment, etc.)
or placed in any available white space within the figure itself
(using corresponding symbols rather than words). To denote statistical
differences, only the following symbols should be used,
always in this order: *,†, ‡, §,, ¶; then: **, ††, ‡‡, §§, ¶¶, etc.
During the initial submission, figures should be embedded within
the manuscript text, with only the figure number on the same
page for identification. During revision, figures should be submitted
as
clearly named separate files (i.e., Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).
Multipanel figures should have clearly labeled parts (A, B, C, etc.)
and
corresponding legends (eg, Figure 1: Heading. A: Subheading;
B: Subheading, or Figure 1A: Heading; Figure 1B: Heading,
etc.), and must
be submitted as such, not as individual panels;
however, each panel will count as a separate figure towards
manuscript length.
Figures
should be produced at approximately the size they are
to appear in print. Each figure must fit in 1 or 2 journal columns,
corresponding
to 21 picas wide (3.5 inches or 9 cm) or 43 picas
wide (7 inches or 18 cm), respectively. At 100% size, text should
be 8-11 points, in
bold and solid typeface and in Arial font (or
equivalent), and used consistently throughout all figures. Lines
should be thick, solid,
and no less than 1-point rule. Reverse type
(white lettering on dark background) and lettering on top of
shaded or textured areas should
be avoided. Wording on figures
should be kept to a minimum.
For line or bar graphs, labeling of the y-axis should be vertical.
Shading
and texturing should be avoided, whenever possible.
If unavoidable, differing shades must vary by at least 25%, i.e.,
25%, 50%, 75%.
For texturing, variations from solid black and
white should be denoted with clear bold hatch stripes (vertical,
horizontal, or diagonal).
Data points should be marked with
white and black circles, squares, triangles, and diamonds. Key
information should be placed in any
available white space within
the figure; if space is not available, the information should be
placed in the legend. Symbols of statistical
significance should
be explained in the legend.
Color figures should be submitted in RGB (red, green, blue)
format. Color images will
be preserved as RGB up until the time
of printing and will be posted online in their original RGB form.
Using RGB color mode for online
images offers a significant
improvement for figures that contain fluorescent blues, reds, and
greens. Therefore, the online journal will
accurately reflect the
color of the images the way the author intended. For print, the
images will be converted to CMYK through an automated
color
conversion process.
Reproduction of previously published material
If materials (eg, figures and/or tables) are reproduced
from
other sources, this should be noted in the legend. The authors
must provide written permission for reproduction, obtained from
the
copyright holder.
Supplementary online appendix
Supplemental data allow authors to enhance their papers by
making additional
substantive material available to readers, in
the form of figures, tables, datasets, etc, and is published only
online; it does not appear
in the printed version of the journal.
Alternatively, the authors may be required to include some of
the initial manuscript material
as a supplementary online appendix
in order for their manuscript to meet the journal's length
requirements; generally, only results should
be included as
supplemental data, although methods may also be included, if
necessary. Supplemental files should be submitted at the
time of submission and will be reviewed along with the manuscript.
Authors should refer to the supplemental data in the
manuscript at
an appropriate point in the text or figure/table
legend. Supplemental data will be copyedited per journal style
whenever possible.
Supporting information
Supporting information should include cited accepted papers
without DOI (not available online), cited
unpublished material
or respective confirmation letters, published abstracts, as well as
any other material that may facilitate the handling
of the authors'
manuscript. Supporting information will be reviewed along with
the manuscript, but will not be published, either online
or in print.
Units of measure and format
Data should be expressed in metric units or Systeme
Internationale (SI) units,
but use of one system or the other must
be consistent throughout the manuscript, tables and figures.
Temperature should be expressed
in degrees Celsius (°C), energy
should be expressed in calories (not joules), and time of day
should be expressed using the 24-hour
clock (eg, 0800 h, 1500 h).
Aslash should be used to indicate division (eg, mg/dL, nmol/L); a
small dot, larger than a period and centered
on the cap height of a
font (?) should be used to indicate multiplication (eg, mg/kg?min,
mmol?mU/L?min). Common units
of measurement should appear
as follows: ng, ?g, mg, g, kg (for weight); ?L, mL, L (for volume);
sec, h, d, mo, y (for time);
mm, cm, m, km (for length); cal, kcal
(for energy). Plural tense should be avoided (eg, kgs, secs, kcals,
etc.). P values should
appear italicized. A space should be used
before and after common mathematical symbols and units of
measurement (eg, 5 ± 2 ng/mL,
P < .001, 22 °C, 52%, 5-10 min).
Abbreviations
Metabolism does not implement any standard abbreviations.
Abbreviations should generally be kept to a minimum and be
used solely to improve readability. They may be used for scientific
terms
which are widely known by their acronym (eg,
DNA, EDTA, ELISA, ANOVA, etc) or for scientific terms
appearing 3 or more times in the manuscript
abstract or text,
but should generally not be used to denote different interventions
or groups or different levels of a treatment, unless
absolutely necessary; the title of the manuscript should contain
no abbreviations. In the abstract, abbreviations must be defined
immediately
after their first mentioning. In the text, authors
may use abbreviations without prior definition; however, all
abbreviations in the
text must be defined in the list of abbreviations
at the beginning of the manuscript, immediately following
the abstract and before the
manuscript text.
Updated August 2010
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