Somatotype in Alzheimer's disease.
BACKGROUND
The clinical picture of Alzheimer's disease includes anthropometric and body composition variations. Somatotyping is a practical non-invasive method to assess body type.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to describe the somatotype of a sample of Alzheimer's patients.


METHODS
The sample consisted of 55 Alzheimer disease individuals in the mild-moderate stage (17 men, mean age = 76.9 +/- 7.2 years; 38 women, mean age = 79.6 +/- 6.4 years). The pathological subjects were compared with a control group consisting of 280 healthy individuals (134 men, mean age = 74.2 +/- 7.3 years; 146 women, mean age = 74.9 +/- 7.4 years). The Heath-Carter somatotype was applied.


RESULTS
The Alzheimer patients (mean somatotype: 6.1-5.5-0.8 in men, 7.0-5.3-0.7 in women) are less mesomorphic and more ectomorphic than the controls (mean somatotype: 6.1-6.3-0.6 in men, 7.7-6.3-0.4 in women), the differences being significant in women (mesomorphy, p = 0.000; ectomorphy, p = 0.012).


CONCLUSIONS
Alzheimer patients show peculiar somatometric characteristics. The somatotype technique could represent a suitable tool for the study and monitoring of physical variations.
Buffa
Roberto
R
Dipartimento di Biologia sperimentale, Sezione di Scienze antropologiche, Università di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy.
Lodde
Marco
M
Floris
Giovanni
G
Zaru
Cristina
C
Putzu
Paolo F
PF
Marini
Elisabetta
E
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001823:Body Composition; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D013008:Somatotypes; D015431:Weight Loss