Revised 06/09/20178 1
About the Journal ....................................................................................... 1
Article Type Specifications ..................................................................... 2
Preparation of Articles .............................................................................. 3
How to Submit ............................................................................................ 5
Post-Acceptance .......................................................................................... 5
Costs ............................................................................................................... 6
Editorial Policies ......................................................................................... 6
Further Information ................................................................................. 10
ABOUT THE JOURNAL
Aims and Scope
Nutrition & Diabetes is a peer-reviewed, open access online journal
publishing clinical, metabolic, genetic and epidemiological studies
that describe methodologies, mechanisms, and associations in
relation to diabetes and nutrition related diseases. The journal will
also publish papers concerned with the benefits of nutrition and
lifestyle interventions and therapeutic trials in diabetes or related
diseases for both clinical disease management and health promotion.
Contributions of broad biological interest and impact are especially
encouraged. Topics of particular interest within the journal's scope
include those listed below:
Basic science
• molecular biology of adipose tissue, muscle and liver
• molecular basis of macronutrient metabolism and
inflammation
• genetics - tissue gene expression; genotypes, SNPs and
phenotypic variability
• epigenetics
Experimental medicine
• food intake regulation
• fat, carbohydrate and energy metabolism
• body compositon with focus on the assessment of
individual fat depots and ectopic fat
• animal models of overweight and nutrition-related
diseases
Metabolic Syndrome
• aetiological factors
• ethnic differences
• relationship with disease outcomes
• novel therapies
Dietary interventions
• reduction of cardiovascular disease risk factors
• reduction in overweight and its metabolic sequelae
• randomised controlled trials of dietary/lifestyle
interventions in diabetes
• randomised, controlled trials of major dietary intervention
studies e.g. fruit and vegetable/whole grains,
Mediterranean diet studies on health risks
• use of functional food in prevention and treatment of
NCDs
• personalized nutrition
Epidemiology
• prospective cohort studies of links between nutrition and
lifestyle on NCDs
• population studies of associations between nutritional
factors and NCDs, with particular emphasis on
regional/international variations
• longitudinal studies addressing critical life periods and
their long-term effect on NCDs
Journal Details
Editor-in-Chief:
Dr. Nikhil V. Dhurandhar, PhD Professor and Chair, Department of
Nutritional Sciences, Texas Tech University, Texas, USA
Founding Editor-in-Chief:
Richard L. Atkinson, M.D., Director, Obetech Obesity Research
Center, Virginia Biotechnology Research Park, Richmond, USA
Editorial office:
Nature Publishing Group, The Macmillan Building, 4 Crinan Street,
London UK
nutd@nature.com
Impact factor: 2.742 (2017 Journal Citation Reports, Thomson Reuters,
2018).
Revised 06/09/20178 2
ARTICLE TYPE SPECIFICATIONS
ARTICLE DESCRIPTION
ABSTRACT AND
KEYWORDS
WORD LIMIT
TABLES/
FIGURES
REFERENCES
Articles
Please see ‘Preparation of Articles’ below for further details
Structured abstract:
• Background/
Objectives
• Subjects/ Methods
• Results
• Conclusions
Abstract: 300
words
Article: 4,000
words max
excluding abstract,
references, figures
and tables.
Max of 6
Max of 60.
Brief Communications
These are studies that fall short of the criteria for full
Articles (e.g. preliminary experiments limited by sample
size or duration, or novel hypotheses). Apart from including
an abstract, there is no obligation to divide the text into
sections.
Unstructured abstract
Abstract: 200
words
Article: 1,500
words max
excluding abstract,
references, figures
and tables.
Max of 2
Max of 20
Review Articles
Review Articles are comprehensive analyses of specific
topics. All Review Article articles will undergo peer review
prior to acceptance.
Unstructured abstract
Abstract: 200
words
Article: 7,500
words max
excluding abstract,
references, figures
and tables.
Max of 8
Max of 120
Mini-Reviews
Mini-reviews should focus on a clearly defined topic of
current interest, describe recent developments in the field
and include the authors thoughts on what is necessary to
move the field forward in the future.
Unstructured abstract
Abstract: 150
words
Article: 3,000
words max
excluding abstract,
references, figures
and tables.
Max of 6
Max of 50
Correspondences
Correspondences will only be considered for publication if
they contain information critical to a certain area or
reference data recently published in Nutrition & Diabetes.
They must reference the original source, and a Response to
a Letter must reference the Letter in the first few
paragraphs. Letters can use an arbitrary title, but a
Response must cite the title of the Letter: e.g. Response to
[title of Letter]. All letters will be subject to editing.
No abstract required.
500 words max
excluding
references, figures
and tables.
Max of 2
Max of 10
Editorials (by Editor invitation only)
Proposals for Editorials may be submitted; authors should
only send an outline of the proposed paper for initial
consideration.
No abstract required.
1,000 words
excluding
references, figures
and tables.
Max of 2
Max of 10
Technical Reports
Technical Reports are articles that address areas of more
methodological interest. The content of these Reports must
have direct relevance to the field of Nutrition & Diabetes and
have the same level of scientific rigour expected of the
normal articles.
Structured abstract
Abstract: 300
words
Article: 2,500
words excluding
references, figures
and tables.
Max of 4
Max of 25
Revised 06/09/20178 3
PREPARATION OF ARTICLES
Please note that articles must contain the following components.
Please see below for further details.
• Cover letter
• Title page (excluding acknowledgements)
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Materials (or Subjects) and Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Acknowledgements
• Conflict of Interest
• References
• Figure legends
• Tables
• Figures
Cover Letter: The uploaded covering letter must state the material
is original research, has not been previously published and has not
been submitted for publication elsewhere while under
consideration. If the manuscript has been previously considered for
publication in another journal, please include the previous reviewer
comments, to help expedite the decision by the Editorial team.
Add note about including conflict of interest statement.
Title Page: The title page should bear the title of the paper, the full
names of all the authors and their affiliations, together with the
name, full postal address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail
address of the author to whom correspondence and offprint
requests are to be sent (this information is also asked for on the
electronic submission form). The title page must also contain a
Conflict of Interest statement (see Editorial Policy
section).
• The title should be brief, informative, of 150 characters or less
and should not make a statement or conclusion.
• The running title should consist of no more than 50 letters
and spaces. It should be as brief as possible, convey the
essential message of the paper and contain no abbreviations.
• Authors should disclose the sources of any support for the
work, received in the form of grants and/or equipment and
drugs.
• If authors regard it as essential to indicate that two or more
co-authors are equal in status, they may be identified by an
asterisk symbol with the caption ‘These authors contributed
equally to this work’ immediately under the address list.
Abstract: Articles must be prepared with a structured abstract
designed to summarise the essential features of the paper in a
logical and concise sequence under the following mandatory
headings:
• Background/Objectives: What was the main question or
hypothesis tested?
• Subjects/Methods: How many subjects were recruited, how
many dropped out? Was the study randomised, case-
controlled etc? Interventions/methods used and duration of
administration.
• Results: Indicate 95% confidence intervals and exact P value
for effects.
• Conclusions: Answer (significant or not) to main question.
Introduction: The Introduction should assume that the reader is
knowledgeable in the field and should therefore be as brief as
possible but can include a short historical review where desirable.
Materials/Subjects and Methods: This section should contain
sufficient detail, so that all experimental procedures can be
reproduced, and include references. Methods, however, that have
been published in detail elsewhere should not be described in
detail. Authors should provide the name of the manufacturer and
their location for any specifically named medical equipment and
instruments, and all drugs should be identified by their
pharmaceutical names, and by their trade name if relevant.
Results and Discussion: The Results section should briefly present
the experimental data in text, tables or figures. Tables and figures
should not be described extensively in the text, either. The
discussion should focus on the interpretation and the significance of
the findings with concise objective comments that describe their
relation to other work in the area. It should not repeat information
in the results. The final paragraph should highlight the main
conclusion(s), and provide some indication of the direction future
research should take.
Acknowledgements: These should be brief, and should include
sources of support including sponsorship (e.g. university, charity,
commercial organisation) and sources of material (e.g. novel drugs)
not available commercially.
Conflict of Interest: Authors must declare whether or not there are
any competing financial interests in relation to the work described.
This information must be included at this stage and will be
published as part of the paper. Conflict of interest should be noted
in the cover letter and also on the title page. Please see the Conflict
of Interest documentation in the Editorial Policy
section for detailed
information.
References: Only papers directly related to the article should be
cited. Exhaustive lists should be avoided. References should follow
the Vancouver format. In the text they should appear as numbers
starting at one and at the end of the paper they should be listed
(double-spaced) in numerical order corresponding to the order of
citation in the text. Where a reference is to appear next to a number
in the text, for example following an equation, chemical formula or
biological acronym, citations should be written as (ref. X) and not as
superscript.
Example. “detectable levels of endogenous Bcl-2 (ref. 3), as
confirmed by western blot”
All authors should be listed for papers with up to six authors; for
papers with more than six authors, the first six only should be
listed, followed by et al. Abbreviations for titles of medical
periodicals should conform to those used in the latest edition of
Index Medicus. The first and last page numbers for each reference
should be provided. Abstracts and letters must be identified as
such. Papers in press may be included in the list of references.
Personal communications must be allocated a number and included
in the list of references in the usual way or simply referred to in the
text; the authors may choose which method to use. In either case
authors must obtain permission from the individual concerned to
quote his/her unpublished work.
Examples:
Journal article, up to six authors:
Belkaid Y, Rouse BT. Natural regulatory T cells in infectious
disease. Nat Immunol 2005; 6: 353–360.
Revised 06/09/20178 4
Journal article, e-pub ahead of print:
Bonin M, Pursche S, Bergeman T, Leopold T, Illmer T, Ehninger
G et al. F-ara-A pharmacokinetics during reduced-intensity
conditioning therapy with fludarabine and busulfan. Bone Marrow
Transplant 2007; e-pub ahead of print 8 January 2007;
doi:10.1038/sj.bmt.1705565
Journal article, in press:
Gallardo RL, Juneja HS, Gardner FH. Normal human marrow
stromal cells induce clonal growth of human malignant T-
lymphoblasts. Int J Cell Cloning (in press).
Complete book:
Atkinson K, Champlin R, Ritz J, Fibbe W, Ljungman P, Brenner MK
(eds). Clinical Bone Marrow and Blood Stem Cell Transplantation, 3rd
edn. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2004.
Chapter in book:
Coccia PF. Hematopoietic cell transplantation for osteopetrosis. In:
Blume KG, Forman SJ, Appelbaum FR (eds). Thomas' Hematopoietic
Cell Transplantation, 3rd edn. Blackwell Publishing Ltd: Malden,
MA, USA, 2004, pp 1443–1454.
Abstract:
Syrjala KL, Abrams JR, Storer B, Heiman JR. Prospective risk factors
for five-year sexuality late effects in men and women after
haematopoietic cell transplantation. Bone Marrow
Transplant 2006; 37(Suppl 1): S4 (abstract 107).
Correspondence:
Caocci G, Pisu S. Overcoming scientific barriers and human
prudence [letter]. Bone Marrow Transplant 2006; 38: 829–830.
Figure Legends: These should be brief, specific and appear on a
separate manuscript page after the References section.
Tables: Tables should only be used to present essential data; they
should not duplicate what is written in the text. It is imperative
that any tables used are editable, ideally presented in Excel. Each
must be uploaded as a separate workbook with a title or caption
and be clearly labelled, sequentially. Please make sure each table is
cited within the text and in the correct order, e.g. (Table 3).
Please save the files with extensions .xls / .xlsx / .ods / or .doc or
.docx. Please ensure that you provide a 'flat' file, with single values
in each cell with no macros or links to other workbooks or
worksheets and no calculations or functions.
Figures: Figures and images should be labelled sequentially and
cited in the text. Figures should not be embedded within the text
but rather uploaded as separate files. Detailed guidelines for
submitting artwork can be found by downloading our
Artwork
Guidelines. The use of three-dimensional histograms is strongly
discouraged when the addition of the third dimension gives no
extra information.
Reuse of Display Items: See the Editorial Policy
section for
information on using previously published tables or figures.
Supplementary Information: Supplementary information (SI) is
peer-reviewed material directly relevant to the conclusion of an
article that cannot be included in the printed version owing to
space or format constraints. The article must be complete and self-
explanatory without the SI, which is posted on the journal's website
and linked to the article. SI may consist of data files, graphics,
movies or extensive tables. Please see our Artwork Guidelines
for
information on accepted file types.
Authors should submit supplementary information files in the
FINAL format as they are not edited, typeset or changed, and will
appear online exactly as submitted. When submitting SI, authors
are required to:
• Include a text summary (no more than 50 words) to describe
the contents of each file.
• Identify the types of files (file formats) submitted.
• Include the text “Supplementary information is available at
(journal name)’s website” at the end of the article and before
the references.
Availability of Data and Materials: Please see our Editorial Policies
for information regarding data, protocols, sequences, or structures.
Subject Ontology: Choosing the most relevant and specific subject
terms from our subject ontology will ensure that your article will be
more discoverable and will appear on appropriate subject specific
pages on nature.com, in addition to the journal’s own pages. Your
article should be indexed with at least one, and up to four unique
subject terms that describe the key subjects and concepts in your
manuscript. Click here
for help with this.
House Style
• Text should be double spaced with a wide margin.
• All pages and lines are to be numbered. To add page
numbers in MS Word, go to Insert then Page Numbers. To
add line numbers go to File, Page Setup, then click
the Layout tab. In the Apply to box, select Whole document,
click Line Numbers then select the Add line numbering check
box, followed by Continuous.
• Do not make rules thinner than 1pt (0.36mm).
• Use a coarse hatching pattern rather than shading for tints in
graphs.
• Colour should be distinct when being used as an identifying
tool.
• Spaces, not commas should be used to separate thousands.
• At first mention of a manufacturer, the town (and state if
USA) and country should be provided.
• Statistical methods: For normally distributed data, mean (SD)
is the preferred summary statistic. Relative risks should be
expressed as odds ratios with 95% confidence interval. To
compare two methods for measuring a variable the method
of Bland & Altman (1986, Lancet 1, 307–310) should be used;
for this, calculation of P only is not appropriate.
• Units: Use metric units (SI units) as fully as possible.
Preferably give measurements of energy in kiloJoules or
MegaJoules with kilocalories in parentheses (1 kcal = 4.186kJ).
Use % throughout.
• Abbreviations: On first using an abbreviation place it in
parentheses after the full item. Very common abbreviations
such as FFA, RNA, need not be defined. Note these
abbreviations: gram g; litre l; milligram mg; kilogram kg;
kilojoule kJ; megajoule MJ; weight wt; seconds s;
minutes min; hours h. Do not add s for plural units.
Revised 06/09/20178 5
English Language Support
For editors and reviewers to accurately assess the work presented
in your manuscript you need to ensure the English language is of
sufficient quality to be understood. If you need help with writing in
English you should consider:
• Asking a colleague who is a native English speaker to
review your manuscript for clarity.
• Visiting the English language tutorial
which covers the
common mistakes when writing in English.
• Using a professional language editing service where
editors will improve the English to ensure that your
meaning is clear and identify problems that require your
review. Two such services are provided by our affiliates
Nature Research Editing Service and
American Journal
Experts.
Please note that the use of a language editing service is not a
requirement for publication in this journal and does not imply or
guarantee that the article will be selected for peer review or
accepted.
If your manuscript is accepted it will be checked by our copyeditors
for spelling and formal style before publication.
HOW TO SUBMIT
Pre-submission Enquiries
Pre-submission enquiries should be submitted via the online
submission system. All other pre-submission enquiries should be
directed to the editorial office:
Email: nutd@nature.com
Online Submission
We only accept manuscript submission via our
online manuscript
submission system. Before submitting a manuscript, authors are
encouraged to consult both our Editorial Policies and the
Submission Instructions for our online manuscript submission
system. If you have not already done so, please register for an
account with our online manuscript system. You will be able to
monitor the status of your manuscript online throughout the
editorial process.
Submission of Revisions
Authors submitting a revised manuscript after review are asked to
include the following:
(1) A rebuttal letter, indicating point-by-point how you have
addressed the comments raised by the reviewers. If you
disagree with any of the points raised, please provide
adequate justification in your letter.
(2) A marked-up version of the manuscript that highlights
changes made in response to the reviewers' comments in order
to aid the Editors and reviewers.
(3) A 'clean' (non-highlighted) version of the manuscript.
POST-ACCEPTANCE
Nutrition & Diabetes is an open access journal: authors pay an
article processing charge (APC) for their accepted articles to be
open access online and freely accessible, immediately upon
publication, under a Creative Commons license.
Visit our open research site
for further information about licenses,
APCs, and our free OA funding support service:
• About Creative Commons licensing
• Creative Commons license options and article processing
charges (APCs) for Nutrition & Diabetes
• APC payment FAQs
• Help in identifying funding for APCs
• APC waiver policy
• Compliance with funding body requirements
Once a manuscript is accepted the corresponding author must
complete an Article Processing Charge (APC) payment form
and
an open access License to Publish (LTP) form on behalf of all
authors, and return these to the editorial office. Forms will be
provided upon acceptance of the article. Failure to promptly
return forms will result in delay of publication.
Government employees from the United States and UK
are
required to sign and submit the relevant government open access
license to publish form.
Please note with regards to payment that usual credit terms are 30
days from receipt of invoice. Failure to pay your invoice within the
stated credit term may result in such penalties as restrictions on
your ability to publish with Nature Publishing Group or Nutrition
& Diabetes in the future, involvement of a third Party debt
collection agency and legal proceedings.
Manuscript deposition and self-archiving
To facilitate self-archiving NPG deposits open access articles in
PubMed Central and Europe PubMed Central on publication.
Authors are also permitted to post the final, published PDF of
their article on a website, institutional repository or other free
public server, immediately on publication. Learn more about
self-
archiving and deposition of papers published OA.
E-Proofs
The Springer Nature e-proofing system is a unique solution that
will enable authors to remotely edit /correct your article proofs.
The corresponding author will receive an e-mail containing a URL
linking to the e-proofing site. Proof corrections must be returned
Revised 06/09/20178 6
within 48 hours of receipt. Failure to do so may result in delayed
publication. Extensive corrections cannot be made at this stage.
For more information and instructions on how to use the e-
proofing too please see here
.
COSTS
Nutrition & Diabetes levies the following Article-Processing Charges (APC) per article accepted for publication. A payment form
will need to be
completed and returned alongside the License to Publish form. Failure to promptly return these forms will result in delay of publication.
With regards to payment, usual credit terms are 30 days from receipt of invoice. Failure to pay your invoice within the stated credit term may
result in restrictions on your ability to publish with Nature Publishing Group or Nutrition & Diabetes in the future, involvement of a third party
debt collection agency and legal proceedings.
UK & RoW
US
Europe
Article / Review Article / Technical Reports
£1,870
$2,790
€2,290
Brief Communication
£935
$1,595
€1,225
Correspondence
£580
$865
€735
(VAT or local taxes will be added where applicable)
Fee Waiver Policy
Nutrition & Diabetes offers APC waivers
for papers whose corresponding authors are based in the world's lowest income countries as defined
by the World Bank. Discretionary APC waivers for authors will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and may be granted in cases of financial
need. All applications for discretionary APC waivers should be made at the point of manuscript submission; requests made during the review
process or after acceptance will not be considered. To request a waiver please contact
apcwaivers@springernature.com. Full details of our APC
waiver and discount policies can be found here.
Open access funding
Visit Nature Publishing Group's open access funding page
for information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for
open access.
NPG also offers an APC support service to make it easier for NPG authors to discover and apply for open access funding. For advice on what
funding is available to you and help in approaching funders and institutions, please contact us at openaccess@nature.com
.
For more information about NPG's open access publishing options and policies, please see our open access homepage
.
EDITORIAL POLICIES
Duplicate Publication
Papers must be original and not published or submitted for
publication elsewhere. This rule also applies to non-English
language publications. NPG allows and encourages prior
publication on recognized community preprint servers for review
by other scientists before formal submission to a journal. The
details of the preprint server concerned and any accession numbers
should be included in the cover letter accompanying manuscript
submission. This policy does not extend to preprints available to
the media or that are otherwise publicized outside the scientific
community before or during the submission and consideration
process.
Permissions
If a table or figure has been published before, the authors must
obtain written permission to reproduce the material in both print
and electronic formats from the copyright owner and submit it with
the manuscript. This follows for quotes, illustrations and other
materials taken from previously published works not in the public
domain. The original source should be cited in the figure caption or
table footnote. Colour figures can be reproduced if necessary, but
the authors will be expected to contribute towards the cost of
publication. A quote will be supplied upon acceptance of your
paper.
Clinical Trials
As defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal
Editors (ICMJE), a clinical trial is any research project that
prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention and
comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship
between a medical intervention and a health outcome. A medical
intervention is any intervention used to modify a health outcome
and includes but is not limited to drugs, surgical procedures,
devices, behavioural treatments, and process-of-care changes. A
trial must have at least one prospectively assigned concurrent
control or comparison group in order to trigger the requirement for
registration. Nonrandomized trials are not exempt from the
registration requirement if they meet the above criteria.
When reporting experiments on human subjects, please indicate
whether the procedures were in accordance with the ethical
standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation
(institutional or regional) or with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975
Revised 06/09/20178 7
(as revised in 1983). Include Institutional Review Board or Animal
Care and Use Committee approvals.
All clinical trials must be registered in a public registry prior to
submission. The journal follows the trials registration policy of the
ICMJE (www.icmje.org
) and considers only trials that have been
appropriately registered before submission, regardless of when the
trial closed to enrolment. Acceptable registries must meet the
following ICMJE requirements:
• be publicly available, searchable, and open to all prospective
registrants
• have a validation mechanism for registration data
• be managed by a not-for-profit organization
Examples of registries that meet these criteria include:
1) the registry sponsored by the United States National Library
of Medicine (www.clinicaltrials.gov
);
2) the International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial
Number Registry (www.controlled-trials.com
);
3) the Cochrane Renal Group Registry (www.cochrane-
renal.org);
4) and the European Clinical Trials Database
(https://eudract.ema.europa.eu/
).
The trial registry number for eligible papers will be collected
during the submission process.
Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) must adhere to the
CONSORT statement, (CONsolidated Standards Of Reporting
Trials) and submissions must be accompanied by a completed
CONSORT checklist (uploaded as a related manuscript file).
Further information can be found at www.consort-statement.org
.
Nature Publishing Group endorses the toolkits and guidelines
produced by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE):
http://publicationethics.org/
Conflict of Interest
In the interests of transparency and to help readers form their own
judgments of potential bias, authors must declare whether or not
there are any competing financial interests in relation to the work
described. This information must be included in their cover letter
and on the title page of their manuscript. In cases where the authors
declare a competing financial interest, a statement to that effect is
published as part of the article. If no such conflict exists, the
statement will simply read that the authors have nothing to
disclose.
For the purposes of this statement, competing interests are defined
as those of a financial nature that, through their potential influence
on behaviour or content, or from perception of such potential
influences, could undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived
value of a publication. They can include any of the following:
• Funding: Research support (including salaries, equipment,
supplies, reimbursement for attending symposia, and other
expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially
through this publication. The role of the funding body in the
design of the study, collection and analysis of data and
decision to publish should be stated.
• Employment: Recent (while engaged in the research project),
present or anticipated employment by any organization that
may gain or lose financially through this publication.
• Personal financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies
that may gain or lose financially through publication;
consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from
organizations that may gain or lose financially; patents or
patent applications whose value may be affected by
publication.
It is difficult to specify a threshold at which a financial interest
becomes significant, but note that many US universities require
faculty members to disclose interests exceeding $10,000 or 5%
equity in a company. Any such figure is arbitrary, so we offer as
one possible practical alternative guideline: "Declare all interests
that could embarrass you were they to become publicly known after
your work was published." We do not consider diversified mutual
funds or investment trusts to constitute a competing financial
interest.
The statement must contain an explicit and unambiguous statement
describing any potential conflict of interest, or lack thereof, for any
of the authors as it relates to the subject of the report. Examples
include “Dr. Smith receives compensation as a consultant for XYZ
Company,” “Dr. Jones and Dr. Smith have financial holdings in
ABC Company,” or “Dr. Jones owns a patent on the diagnostic
device described in this report.” These statements acknowledging
or denying conflicts of interest must be included in the manuscript
under the heading Conflict of Interest. The Conflict of Interest
disclosure appears in the cover letter, in the manuscript submission
process and before the References section in the manuscript.
Following the Conflict of Interest heading, there must be a listing
for each author, detailing the professional services relevant to the
submission. Neither the precise amount received from each entity
nor the aggregate income from these sources needs to be provided.
Professional services include any activities for which the individual
is, has been, or will be compensated with cash, royalties, fees, stock
or stock options in exchange for work performed, advice or counsel
provided, or for other services related to the author’s professional
knowledge and skills. This would include, but not necessarily be
limited to, the identification of organizations from which the author
received contracts or in which he or she holds an equity stake if
professional services were provided in conjunction with the
transaction.
Examples of declarations are:
• Conflict of interest.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
• Conflict of interest.
Dr Caron's work has been funded by the NIH. He has
received compensation as a member of the scientific advisory
board of Acadia Pharmaceutical and owns stock in the
company. He also has consulted for Lundbeck and received
compensation. Dr Rothman and Dr Jensen declare no
potential conflict of interest.
Authorship
Requirements for all categories of articles should conform to the
“Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical
Journals,” developed by the ICMJE (www.icmje.org
).
Revised 06/09/20178 8
Each author must have contributed sufficiently to the intellectual
content of the submission. The corresponding author should list all
authors and their contributions to the work. Any changes to the
author list after submission, such as a change in the order of the
authors, or the deletion or addition of authors, must be approved
by a signed letter from every author. The corresponding author
must confirm that he or she has had full access to the data in the
study and final responsibility for the decision to submit for
publication. To qualify as a contributing author, one must meet all
of the following criteria:
1) Conceived and/or designed the work that led to the
submission, acquired data, and/or played an important role
in interpreting the results.
2) Drafted or revised the manuscript.
3) Approved the final version.
Contributions by individuals who made direct contributions to the
work but do not meet all of the above criteria should be noted in
the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript. Medical writers
and industry employees can be contributors. Their roles,
affiliations, and potential conflicts of interest should be included in
the author list or noted in the Acknowledgments and/or
Contributors section concurrent with their contribution to the work
submitted. Signed statements from any medical writers or editors
declaring that they have given permission to be named as an
author, as a contributor, or in the Acknowledgments section is also
required. Failure to acknowledge these contributors can be
considered inappropriate, which conflicts with the journal’s
editorial policy.
Reproducibility
As of March 2015, Nutrition and Diabetes requires authors of papers
that are sent for external review to include in their manuscripts
relevant details about several elements of experimental and
analytical design. This initiative aims to improve the transparency
of reporting and the reproducibility of published results, focusing
on elements of methodological information
that are frequently
poorly reported. Authors being asked to resubmit a manuscript will
be asked to confirm that these elements are included by filling out a
checklist that will be made available to the editor and reviewers.
Correspondence with the Journal
One author is designated the contact author for matters arising
from the manuscript (materials requests, technical comments and
so on). It is this author's responsibility to inform all co-authors of
matters arising and to ensure such matters are dealt with promptly.
Before submission, the corresponding author ensures that all
authors are included in the author list, its order agreed upon by all
authors, and are aware that the manuscript was submitted. After
acceptance for publication, proofs are e-mailed to this
corresponding author who should circulate the proof to all co-
authors and coordinate corrections among them
Plagiarism and Fabrication
CrossCheck is a multi-publisher initiative to screen published and
submitted content for originality. NPG Journals use CrossCheck to
detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted
manuscripts. To find out more about CrossCheck
visit www.crossref.org/crosscheck.html
.
Plagiarism is when an author attempts to pass off someone else's
work as his or her own. Duplicate publication, sometimes called
self-plagiarism, occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of
his or her own published work without providing the appropriate
references. Minor plagiarism without dishonest intent is relatively
frequent, for example, when an author reuses parts of an
introduction from an earlier paper.
If plagiarism is found, the journal will contact the author's institute
and funding agencies. The paper containing the plagiarism will be
marked on each page of the PDF and depending on the extent of the
plagiarism, a published article may also be formally retracted.
Image Integrity and Standards
Images submitted with a manuscript for review should be
minimally processed (for instance, to add arrows to a micrograph).
Authors should retain their unprocessed data and metadata files, as
editors may request them to aid in manuscript evaluation. If
unprocessed data is unavailable, manuscript evaluation may be
stalled until the issue is resolved.
A certain degree of image processing is acceptable for publication,
but the final image must correctly represent the original data and
conform to community standards. The guidelines below will aid in
accurate data presentation at the image processing level:
• Authors should list all image acquisition tools and image
processing software packages used. Authors should
document key image-gathering settings and processing
manipulations in the Methods section.
• Images gathered at different times or from different locations
should not be combined into a single image, unless it is stated
that the resultant image is a product of time-averaged data or
a time-lapse sequence. If juxtaposing images is essential, the
borders should be clearly demarcated in the figure and
described in the legend.
• Touch-up tools, such as cloning and healing tools in
Photoshop, or any feature that deliberately obscures
manipulations, is to be avoided.
• Processing (such as changing brightness and contrast) is
appropriate only when it is applied equally across the entire
image and is applied equally to controls. Contrast should not
be adjusted so that data disappear. Excessive manipulations,
such as processing to emphasize one region in the image at
the expense of others (for example, through the use of a
biased choice of threshold settings), is inappropriate, as is
emphasizing experimental data relative to the control.
For gels and blots, positive and negative controls, as well as
molecular size markers, should be included on each gel and blot –
either in the main figure or an expanded data supplementary figure.
The display of cropped gels and blots in the main paper is
encouraged if it improves the clarity and conciseness of the
presentation. In such cases, the cropping must be mentioned in the
figure legend.
• Vertically sliced gels that juxtapose lanes that were not
contiguous in the experiment must have a clear separation or
a black line delineating the boundary between the gels.
• Cropped gels in the paper must retain important bands.
• Cropped blots in the body of the paper should retain at least
six band widths above and below the band.
Revised 06/09/20178 9
• High-contrast gels and blots are discouraged, as
overexposure may mask additional bands. Authors should
strive for exposures with gray backgrounds. Immunoblots
should be surrounded by a black line to indicate the borders
of the blot, if the background is faint.
• For quantitative comparisons, appropriate reagents, controls
and imaging methods with linear signal ranges should be
used.
Microscopy adjustments should be applied to the entire image.
Threshold manipulation, expansion or contraction of signal ranges
and the altering of high signals should be avoided. If ‘pseudo-
colouring’ and nonlinear adjustment (for example ‘gamma
changes’) are used, this must be disclosed. Adjustments of
individual colour channels are sometimes necessary on ‘merged’
images, but this should be noted in the figure legend. We
encourage inclusion of the following with the final revised version
of the manuscript for publication:
• In the Methods section, specify the type of equipment
(microscopes/objective lenses, cameras, detectors, filter
model and batch number) and acquisition software used.
Although we appreciate that there is some variation between
instruments, equipment settings for critical measurements
should also be listed.
• The display lookup table (LUT) and the quantitative map
between the LUT and the bitmap should be provided,
especially when rainbow pseudo-colour is used. It should be
stated if the LUT is linear and covers the full range of the
data.
• Processing software should be named and manipulations
indicated (such as type of deconvolution, three-dimensional
reconstructions, surface and volume rendering, 'gamma
changes', filtering, thresholding and projection).
• Authors should state the measured resolution at which an
image was acquired and any downstream processing or
averaging that enhances the resolution of the image.
Availability of Data and Materials
An inherent principle of publication is that others should be able to
replicate and build upon the authors’ published claims. Therefore,
a condition of publication is that authors are required to make
materials, data, and associated protocols available in a publicly
accessible database. Where one does not exist, the information must
be made available to referees at submission and to readers
promptly upon request. Any restrictions on material availability or
other relevant information must be disclosed in the manuscript’s
Methods section and should include details of how materials and
information may be obtained.
Sequences, Structures and “Omics”
Papers reporting protein or DNA sequences and molecular
structures will not be accepted without an accession number
to Genbank/EMBL/DDBJ, SWISS-PROT
,
ProteinDataBank, or other publicly available database in general
use in the field that gives free access to researchers from the date of
publication.
Authors of papers describing structures of biological
macromolecules must provide experimental data upon the request
of Editor if they are not already freely accessible in a publicly
available database such as ProteinDataBank
,
Biological Magnetic Resonance Databank, or Nucleic Acid
Database.
Human and Other Animal Experiments
For primary research manuscripts reporting experiments on live
vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates, the corresponding author
must confirm that all experiments were performed in accordance
with relevant guidelines and regulations.
All manuscripts reporting animal research must be written up in
accordance with the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo
Experiments) guidelines – see http://www.nc3rs.org/ARRIVE.
The manuscript must include in the Supplementary Information
(methods) section (or, if brief, within of the print/online article at an
appropriate place), a statement identifying the institutional and/or
licensing committee approving the experiments, including any
relevant details regarding animal welfare, patient anonymity, drug
side effects and informed consent.
For experiments involving human subjects, authors must identify
the committee approving the experiments, and include with their
submission a statement confirming that informed consent was
obtained from all subjects.
Biosecurity Policy
The Editor may seek advice about submitted papers not only from
technical reviewers but also on any aspect of a paper that raises
concerns. These may include, for example, ethical issues or issues of
data or materials access. Occasionally, concerns may also relate to
the implications to society of publishing a paper, including threats
to security. In such circumstances, advice will usually be sought
simultaneously with the technical peer-review process. As in all
publishing decisions, the ultimate decision whether to publish is the
responsibility of the editor of the journal concerned.
Peer Review
Manuscripts sent out for peer review are evaluated by at least one
independent reviewer (often two or more). Authors are welcome to
suggest independent reviewers to evaluate their manuscript, as well
as request individuals or laboratories. All recommendations are
considered, but it is at the Editor’s discretion their choice of
reviewers. To expedite the review process, only papers that seem
most likely to meet editorial criteria are sent for external review.
Papers judged by the editors to be of insufficient general interest or
otherwise inappropriate are rejected promptly without external
review. The editors then make a decision based on the reviewers'
evaluations:
• Accept, with or without editorial revisions.
• Revise, with the author addressing concerns raised by the
reviewers before a final decision is reached.
• Reject, but indicate to the authors that further work might
justify a resubmission.
• Reject outright, typically on grounds of specialist interest,
lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance or major
technical and/or interpretational problems.
Anonymity and Confidentiality
All details about submitted manuscripts are kept confidential and
no comments are issued to outside parties or organizations about
manuscripts under consideration or if they are rejected. Editors are
restricted to making public comments on a published article’s
content and their evaluation.
Revised 06/09/20178 10
We do not release reviewers' identities to authors, except when
reviewers specifically ask to be identified.
We ask reviewers not to identify themselves to authors without the
editor's knowledge. If they wish to reveal their identities while the
manuscript is under consideration, this should be done via the
editor; if this is not practicable, we ask authors to inform the editor
as soon as possible after the reviewer has revealed their identity.
We deplore any attempt by authors to confront reviewers or try to
determine their identities. Our own policy is to neither confirm nor
deny any speculation about reviewers' identities, and we encourage
reviewers to adopt a similar policy.
Upon accepting an invitation to evaluate a manuscript, reviewers
must keep the manuscript and associated data confidential, and not
redistribute them without the journal’s permission. If a reviewer
asks a colleague to assist in assessing a manuscript, confidentiality
must be ensured and their names must be provided to the journal
with the final report.
Selecting Peer Reviewers
Reviewer selection is critical to the publication process, and we
base our choice on many factors, based on expertise, reputation,
and specific recommendations. A reviewer may decline the
invitation to evaluate a manuscript where there is a perceived
conflict of interest (financial or otherwise).
Communication with the Media
Material submitted must not be discussed with the media. We
reserve the right to halt the consideration or publication of a paper
if this condition is broken. If a paper is particularly newsworthy,
the press release will be sent to our list of journalists in advance of
publication with an embargo that forbids any coverage of the
manuscript, or the findings of the manuscript, until the time and
date clearly stated. Authors whose papers are scheduled for
publication may also arrange their own publicity (for instance
through their institution’s press offices), but they must strictly
adhere to our press embargo and are advised to coordinate their
own publicity with our press office
.
Communication Between Scientists
We do not wish to hinder communication between scientists. We
ask you to communicate with other researchers as much as you
wish, whether on a recognized community preprint server, by
discussion at scientific meetings or by online collaborative sites
such as wikis, but we do not encourage premature publication by
discussion with the press (beyond a formal presentation, if at a
conference).
Pre- and Post-Submissions
Authors are welcome to post pre-submission versions or the
original submitted version of the manuscript on a personal blog, a
collaborative wiki or a recognized preprint server (such as ArXiv
) at
any time (but not subsequent pre-accept versions that evolve due to
the editorial process).
For subscribed content, the accepted version of the manuscript,
following the review process, may only be posted 6 months after
the paper is published in an NPG journal. A publication reference
and URL to the published version on the journal website must be
provided on the first page of the postprint. The published version
— copyedited and in the individual NPG journal format — may not
be posted on any website or preprint server.
For open access content published under a creative commons
license, authors can replace the submitted version with the final
published version at publication as long as a publication reference
and URL to the published version on the journal website are
provided.
Correction and Retraction Process
We recognize our responsibility to correct errors. Content published
online is final and cannot be amended. Please note the following
policy for making corrections to peer-reviewed content.
• Correction. Notification of an important error made by the
journal or by the author that affects the publication record or
the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the
authors, or of the journal.
• Retraction. Notification of invalid results. All co-authors
must sign a retraction specifying the error and stating briefly
how the conclusions are affected.
Decisions about corrections are made by the Editor (sometimes with
peer-reviewers' advice) and this sometimes involves author
consultation. Requests to make corrections that do not affect the
paper in a significant way or impair the reader's understanding of
the contribution (a spelling mistake or grammatical error, for
example) are not considered.
In cases where co-authors disagree about a correction, the editors
will take advice from independent peer-reviewers and impose the
appropriate correction, noting the dissenting author(s) in the text of
the published version.
FURTHER INFORMATION
For inquiries related to submission requirements, please contact the editorial office. For inquiries related to advertising, subscriptions,
permissions, papers in production or publishing a supplement, please contact the publisher’s office.
