[Sexual differentiation of the adipose tissue-muscle ratio. Its metabolic impact]

Muscle and fat development are regulated by opposite and also cooperating factors. Adipo-muscular ratio is the result of those forces. The need of a determined fat mass and of its corollary a determined muscle mass is an important physiologic parameter. Sexual differentiation is the main factor adipo-muscular ratio. Feminine fat is twice as big as masculine fat: it predominates in the lower body, masculine fat in the upper body. Brachio-femoral adipo-muscular ratio is, among others, a good index of fat sexual differentiation. Android obesity, predominating in both sexes in the upper body, is, with genetic predispositions, the main factor of non insulin dependent diabetes carbohydrate sensitive hyperlipoproteinemia, hyperuricemia, atherosclerosis. Easy determination on fat topography before the age of 30 is, particularly in women, the best tool for an efficacious prophylaxis of obesity's metabolic complications.