Specific dynamic action

[1] Heat production by brown adipose tissue which is activated after consumption of a meal is an additional component of dietary induced thermogenesis.

Although some believe that TEF is reduced in obesity, discrepant results and inconsistent research methods have failed to validate such claims.

[5]: 505 The thermic effect of food is the energy required for digestion, absorption, and disposal of ingested nutrients.

Its magnitude depends on the composition of the food consumed: Raw celery and grapefruit are often claimed to have negative caloric balance (requiring more energy to digest than recovered from the food), presumably because the thermic effect is greater than the caloric content due to the high fibre matrix that must be unraveled to access their carbohydrates.

[9][10] The Functional Food Centre at Oxford Brookes University conducted a study into the effects of chilli peppers and medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) on Diet Induced Thermogenesis (DIT).