Anxiety and metabolic rate

Of the factors known to influence metabolic rate it is those with the most marked effect, such as exercise, food intake and temperature extremes, which have attracted the most interest and therefore been the most thoroughly investigated. While researchers have long agreed that emotional disturbance of a subject during a measurement of metabolic rate is likely to lead to errors in the measurement, the evidence for such an effect has been largely anecdotal and there has been very little systematic research attempted. The most widely available method of measuring metabolic rate is that of indirect calorimetry, that is, by estimating oxygen consumption, and the errors inherent in the method, coupled with the difficulty in achieving a consistent baseline, make the study of small increases in metabolic rate, such as would be expected to result from anxiety, very difficult.