Somatotype and cardiovascular risk factors in healthy adults

Relationships between cardiovascular risk factors and Heath-Carter anthropometric somatotype components were considered in 642 healthy adults free from overt disease: 68 males and 177 females, 30-39 years, and 233 males and 224 females, 40-49 years of age. Risk factors included systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP, DBP), fasting glycemia (GLYC), triglycerides (TG), plasma cholesterol (CHOL), the high density lipoprotein cholesterol fraction (HDL-C), and the HDL-C/CHOL ratio. Correlations between risk factors and each somatotype component were calculated after controlling for the effects of the other two somatotype components. Correlations were generally low and at best moderate, with significant correlations ranging from -0.23 to +0.23 in males and -0.20 to +0.30 in females. The relationships were stronger in the older group, 40-49 years, but the pattern of correlations was different in men and women. Endomorphy tended to be positively related to risk factors in older females, whereas ectomorphy tended to be negatively related to risk factors in older males. Comparison of somatotypes of individuals at the extremes of the distributions for each risk factor (upper and lower tertiles) were generally consistent with the direction of the correlations. For each cardiovascular risk, those with a poorer profile tended to be more endomorphic and mesomorphic and less ectomorphic than those with a better profile, who were more ectomorphic and less endomorphic and mesomorphic. The association was more apparent in males than in females and more so in those 40-49 years of age than in the younger age group. Although the correlations suggest that body type is weakly associated with common cardiovascular risk factors in healthy men and women, somatotype associations are more apparent at the extremes of the distributions of specific risk factors. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 9:11-19 © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.