ISSN

not available (PRINT)
2960-0391 (ONLINE)

Focus and scope

The Journal of Metabolic Health is a peer-reviewed, clinically oriented open access journal covering advances in metabolic health and related disorders. The journal focuses on pathophysiology, prevention, management, and advancing therapy for different patient populations with metabolic health issues, including obesity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions associated with insulin resistance and inflammation.

Articles published in the journal will encompass original research with a broad biomedical approach from bench to bedside, including basic research and clinical case studies. In addition, the journal will feature review articles, perspectives, case studies, case reports and editorials to provide comprehensive coverage and critical insights into the field. The content will be of interest to an academic and clinician-based audience, including medical practitioners, clinical educators, dietitians, nutritionists, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals involved in the study and management of metabolic health disorders.

Submissions in English, comprising full articles, will be considered for publication in the Journal of Metabolic Health. By disseminating high-quality research and promoting multidisciplinary collaborations, the Journal of Metabolic Health aims to contribute to a better understanding of metabolic health and its implications for patient care and outcomes.

Historic data

AOSIS launched the Journal (as the Journal of Insulin Resistance) in 2015, following a unique conference that was held in Cape Town in 2015, to discuss the global obesity epidemic and its co-morbidity of lifestyle diseases. The invitation to the conference stated: 'The world is facing a tsunami of lifestyle-related chronic diseases that will cost our global economy $47 trillion over the next twenty years. These diseases are eminently preventable and treatable, and yet currently, every year, they kill twice as many people around the world as infectious diseases do'.

It became clear that the scientific field of insulin resistance and hyperinsulinaemia, and the therapeutic application of carbohydrate-reduction was emerging and needed to become a key area for research, academic discourse, and education of health professionals. Although there were many journals focusing on nutrition, obesity, and endocrinology they are guided by the conventional nutrition underpinnings. It was concluded that a journal was much needed to focus on this new paradigm, and so, the Journal of Insulin Resistance was established.

In 2023, a collaboration was established between the Journal of Insulin Resistance and the Society for Metabolic Health Practitioners (The SMHP™), an organisation founded in 2020. The SMHP represents researchers and practitioners working to improve metabolic health around the world through education, training, and support of evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle approaches, including carbohydrate-reduction. It was recognised that the journal and The SMHP shared many synergies, with strong alignment in their philosophies with regards direction and vision, which extended beyond insulin resistance. It was decided that the Journal of Insulin Resistance become the official journal of The SMHP and expand its scope from an insulin resistance focus to the broader and more holistic field of metabolic health. To further align these two entities, the journal underwent a name change to reflect the collaboration and thereafter became known as the Journal of Metabolic Health.

Publication frequency

The journal publishes at least one issue each year. Articles are published online when ready for publication and then printed in an end-of-year compilation. Additional issues may be published for special events (e.g. conferences) and when special themes are addressed.

Types of articles published

Read full details on the submissions guidelines page.

Open access

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access. Learn more about the journal copyright, licensing and publishing rights.

Review process

The journal has a double-blinded peer review process. Manuscripts are initially examined by the editorial staff and are sent by the Editor-in-Chief to two expert independent reviewers, either directly or by a Section Editor. Any potential reviewers with declared conflicts of food or pharmaceutical industry affiliations will be assessed on their reviewing suitability. Conflicts that are deemed substantial will mean exclusion from the manuscript review process. Read our full peer review process.

Marketing

AOSIS has a number of ways in which we promote publications. Learn more here.

Membership

AOSIS is a member and/or subscribes to the standards and code of practices of several leading industry organisations. This includes the Directory of Open Access Journals, Ithenticate, Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, CrossRef, Portico and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Learn more here.

All articles published in the journal are included in:

• Directory of Open Access Journals
• EBSCO Host
• GALE, CENGAGE Learning
• Google Scholar
• Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers, Level 1

We are working closely with relevant indexing services to ensure that articles published in the journal will be available in their databases when appropriate.

The full text of the journal articles is deposited in the following archives to guarantee long-term preservation:

• AOSIS Library
• SA ePublications, Sabinet
• South African Government Libraries
• Portico

AOSIS is also a participant in the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) initiative. LOCKSS will enable any library to maintain their own archive of content from AOSIS and other publishers, with minimal technical effort and using cheaply available hardware. The URL to the LOCKSS Publisher Manifest for the journal is, https://journalofmetabolichealth.org/index.php/jmh/gateway/lockss. Please inform us if you are using our manifest as we would like to add your name to the list above.

A journal's Impact Factor was originally designed in 1963 as a tool for libraries to compare journals, and identify the most popular ones to subscribe to. It was never intended to measure the quality of journals, and definitely not the quality of individual articles.

The Impact Factor is a journal-level measurement reflecting the yearly average number of citations of recent articles published in that journal. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field; journals with higher Impact Factors are often deemed to be more important than those with lower ones. Therefore, the more often articles in the journal are cited, the higher its Impact Factor.

The Impact Factor is highly discipline-dependent due to the speed with which articles get cited in each field and the related citation practices. The percentage of total citations occurring in the first two years after publication varies highly amongst disciplines. Accordingly, one cannot compare journals across disciplines based on their relative Impact Factors.

We provide several citation-based measurements for each of our journals, if available. We caution our authors, readers and researchers that they should assess the quality of the content of individual articles, and not judge the quality of articles by the reputation of the journal in which they are published.