ArticleScience advances2019
Extreme events reveal an alimentary limit on sustained maximal human energy expenditure.
Article in Science advances, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 141 citations in OpenAlex.
- Energy constraint on human health.Trends in endocrinology and metabolism: TEM · 2026Review
- Understanding physiological adaptations of pregnancy to the chronic hypoxia of high altitude to inform obstetrical and neonatal care.Physiological reviews · 2026Review
- Extreme energy expenditure during a 200 km three-day open-water swim: A doubly labeled water case study.Journal of exercise science and fitness · 2026Article
- Acute Endocrine and Lipid Responses to Extreme Ultramarathon Running Across 100, 308, and 622 km Events.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Adaptation or Maladaptation? Rethinking How Energy Restriction Outcomes Are Monitored.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Article
- Longitudinal and cross-sectional evidence that daily resting and activity energy expenditures are independent in humans.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Birth Weight in the Daasanach Community of Northern Kenya and the Effect of Multiparity.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026Article
- Project FURTHER: A Physiological, Biomechanical, and Psychosocial Profile of an All-Female 6-Day Ultramarathon Race.Sports medicine - open · 2026Article
- The metabolic signature of excessive endurance exercise-A prospective study in Tour de France cyclists.iScience · 2026Article
- Energy Availability, Body Composition, and Phase Angle Among Adolescent Artistic Gymnasts During a Competitive Season.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Training characteristics of male and female WorldTour professional road cyclists before the competitive phase.Biology of sport · 2026Article
- Women's mental health: current status and evolutionary perspectives.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Review
- The associations between resting and total energy expenditure, physical activity, and thyroid hormone levels in adult females.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Article
- Energy balance in cyclists on plant-based diets during a 30-day, 4300-km ride across Canada: Two case studies.Physiological reports · 2025Article
- Physical activity is directly associated with total energy expenditure without evidence of constraint or compensation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Observational
- Why did Bob stop losing weight? We need to talk about energy expenditure compensation.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Article
- Cooperative Breeding as a Likely Early Catalyst of Human Evolution.Evolutionary anthropology · 2025Review
- Pregnancy at high altitude: evolutionary and historical perspectives.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Energy balance in women during polar trekking-The POWER study.Physiological reports · 2025Article
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The limits on maximum sustained energy expenditure are unclear but are of interest because they constrain reproduction, thermoregulation, and physical activity. Here, we show that sustained expenditure in humans, measured as maximum sustained metabolic scope (SusMS), is a function of event duration. We compiled measurements of total energy expenditure (TEE) and basal metabolic rate (BMR) from human endurance events and added new data from adults running ~250 km/week for 20 weeks in a transcontinental race. For events lasting 0.5 to 250+ days, SusMS decreases curvilinearly with event duration, plateauing below 3× BMR. This relationship differs from that of shorter events (e.g., marathons). Incorporating data from overfeeding studies, we find evidence for an alimentary energy supply limit in humans of ~2.5× BMR; greater expenditure requires drawing down the body's energy stores. Transcontinental race data suggest that humans can partially reduce TEE during long events to extend endurance.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.