Scaling of adult human bone and skeletal muscle mass to height in the US population.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVES:The scaling of structural components to body size is well studied in mammals, although comparable human observations in a large and diverse sample are lacking. The current study aimed to fill this gap by examining the scaling relationships between total body (TB) and regional bone and skeletal muscle (SM) mass with body size, as defined by stature, in a nationally representative sample of the US population. METHODS:Subjects were 17,126 non-Hispanic (NH) white, NH black, and Mexican American men and women, aged ?18?years, evaluated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey who had TB and regional bone mineral (BMin) and lean soft tissue (LST) mass measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. BMin and appendicular LST served as surrogate bone and SM mass measures, respectively. The allometric model, BMin or LST = ?(height)? , in a logarithmic form was used to generate scaling exponents. RESULTS:The findings were similar across all gender and race groups: body mass scaled to height with powers of ~2.0 (mean ??±?SE, 1.94?±?0.08-2.29?±?0.09) while TB and appendicular BMin and appendicular LST scaled to height with consistently larger powers than those for body mass (eg, all P?

SUBMITTER: Heymsfield SB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6634976 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature