ORIGINAL ARTICLE  BODY COMPOSITION, NUTRITION AND SUPPLEMENTATION 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2021 December;61(12):1613-9

DOI: 10.23736/S0022-4707.20.11978-9

Copyright © 2020 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

The comparative measurement of body segment parameters using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry between sexes

Osvaldo COSTA MOREIRA ¹ ✉, Cláudia E. PATROCÍNIO DE OLIVEIRA ², Dihogo G. DE MATOS ³, Mauro L. MAZINI FILHO ⁴, Sandro FERNANDES DA SILVA ⁵, Felipe J. AIDAR ^{3, 6}, José A. DE PAZ ⁷

¹ Campus Florestal, Institute of Biological Sciences and Health, Federal University of Viçosa, Florestal, Brazil; ² Campus Viçosa, Department of Physical Education, Federal University of Viçosa, Viçosa, Brazil; ³ Group of Studies and Research of Performance, Sport, Health and Paralympic Sports - GEPEPS, The Federal University of Sergipe - UFS, São Cristovão, Brazil; ⁴ Department of Physical Education, Sudamérica Faculty, Cataguases, Brazil; ⁵ Department of Physical Education, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, Brazil; ⁶ Department of Physical Education, Federal University of Sergipe, São Cristovão, Brazil; ⁷ Institute of Biomedicine (IBIOMED), University of Leon, Leon, Spain

BACKGROUND: The study aimed to determine the proportion of the body segments in relation to the total body mass in healthy people, as well as analyze the composition of each segment and compare these results between sexes.
METHODS: A total of 60 young adults (30 men and 30 women) were subjected to a full-body scan by dual energy X-rays absorptiometry (DXA) under standardized conditions. The regions of interest (ROI) were determined by a single trained evaluator. The body was divided into 16 segments to obtain values of total mass, lean mass (LM), fat mass, bone mineral content (BMC), lean mass percentage (%LM) and fat mass percentage (%FM) of each body segment represented by the 16 ROI.
RESULTS: Men presented higher absolute mass in the upper limbs (Δ=32.87%; P<0.05). The proportion of the lower limbs (Δ=6.83%; P<0.05) and trunk (Δ=5.07%; P<0.05) of men is higher than women. In addition, males have more LM in the upper limbs (Δ=42.19%; P<0.05) and trunk (Δ=26.46%; P<0.001), and more BMC in the trunk (Δ=18.78%; P<0.05) and forearms (Δ=32.21%; P<0.05). They also present higher %LM (Δ=6.48%; P<0.001) and lower %FM (Δ=54.43%; P<0.001) than women in the forearms.
CONCLUSIONS: The different body segments represent a different percentage of the total body mass in men than in women, as well as men present more LM and BMC in the trunk and upper limbs.

KEY WORDS: Densitometry; Body composition; Bone density