Josef Brožek

DENSITOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF BODY COMPOSITION: REVISION OF SOME QUANTITATIVE ASSUMPTIONS*

One can trace to Archimedes the idea that in a system consisting of two additive components which are mixed but the densities of which are known ( d l , d 2 ) , the determination of the density of the system ( D ) allows one to calculate the proportional masses of the two components. Let’s denote these components as W1 and W2.S Then, in a system with total weight W = W1 + Wz, the general equation for calculating component W1 expressed as a fraction (w1) of the total body weight is:

Russian research on arterial hypertension.

Excerpt TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction 130 IL Classification 132 III. Central Nervous System Involvement in the Pathogenesis of Essential Hypertension 134 1. Central nervous system stimulation a...

Explorations in the history of psychology in the United States

The origins of American academic psychology / Rand B. Evans. -- Jonathan Edwardss theory of the mind / James G. Blight -- David Jayne Hill / Josef Broezek -- William Jamess psychology of will / William R. Woodward -- Pione psychology laboratories in clinical settings / John A. Popplestone and Mario White McPherson -- James McKeen Cattell and American psychology in the 1920s Michael M. Sokal.

Blood lipids in young men followed 32 years

The relationship of baseline characteristics to serum cholesterol at baseline (CHL47) when aged 16-25 (mean 20.5) yr and at 32-yr follow-up (CHL79) was assessed in 162 men. Mean CHL rose over the follow-up period. CHL47 predicted CHL79 (r = 0.61, p less than 0.001) but not CHL79-CHL47. The mean (+/- SD) weight change (DW) was 12.0 kg (+/- 26.0 kg). DW was not significantly related to CHL47, but was independently related to CHL79-CHL47 (4 = 0.30, p less than 0.001). Age, height, DW, any of 7 measures of baseline obesity and CHL47 predicted CHL79 with R2 of 0.40 and CHL79-CHL47 with R2 of 0.37. Thus, weight change but not baseline relative weight was a determinant of serum cholesterol change from youth to middle age. There was strong tracking of serum cholesterol over this period.

LUNG VOLUME IN SMOKERS AND NONSMOKERS

Excerpt Tobacco smoking has long been suspected as an etiologic factor in respiratory symptoms and chronic bronchopulmonary disease, largely on the basis of clinical impression. Recent evidence ten...

ROLE OF ANTHROPOMETRY IN THE STUDY OF BODY COMPOSITION: TOWARD A SYNTHESIS OF METHODS

“It seems evident that the morphologist, the biochemist and the biophysicist should all be concerned with the progress of one another in their respective fields and whenever possible, correlation of morphological, biochemical and biophysical information be made. Much knowledge has accumulated from each of these three fields of study but on the whole such knowledge is in the descriptive stage and awaits integration for insight into one aspect of the anatomy of life” (Wolbach, 1953, p. 254). The author of the above “motto” was speaking about experimental scurvy and the role of the deficit of ascorbic acid in its etiology; but he might have referred, almost as well, to the study of body composition. This, too, is a complex problem the study of which requires the pooling of skills developed in a variety of disciplines. The physical anthropologist has a legitimate interest in this field and can make specific and important contributions to its development. I n the past, physical anthropology-whether utilizing somatic measurements or ratings, living subjects, or pictures-tended to be concerned excessively with body form, largely neglecting or only obliquely and vaguely considering the “substance” of the body. In this way it has failed to contribute in full-measure to the study of metabolism, physiological functions within the limits of clinical normality, and the tendency toward the development of disease, particularly the noninfectious, noncongenital, degenerative diseases in which heart disease plays such a distressingly large role. In the past 15 years, important new tools were developed for a quantitative assessment of the principal tissue masses, based on biophysical (body density) and biochemical methods (body water and its fractions). The “soft-tissue” roentgenograms provide means for the measurement of the depth of the subcutaneous adipose tissue (plus skin) and, in the limbs, for the quantitative separation of the muscle and bone segments. Because of the simplicity of the procedures and favorable considerations of time expenditure and financial investment, estimates of body composition in a variety of situations will rely on the direct anthropometric techniques. Thus there are practical, as well as theoretical, reasons for considering external body measurements, including skinfolds, in reference to the data provided by X-ray analysis, determinations of body density and measurements of body water, in a larger framework of experimental and descriptive human biology. One of the pressing problems is to develop an adequate system of