Hormones, body composition and cardiovascular risk.

Some 20 compartments of the body may be measured by CT and organ areas determined in 28 CT scans. Advantages of CT are described. While there have been extensive studies of hormones in pre- and postnatal growth, apart from evidence from disease, the role of hormones in adults has been less known. Data on growth hormone and sex hormones, from organ-oriented body composition studies, are summarized, together with implications for the relation between body composition and cardiovascular risk. Sex-specific anthropometric equations allow estimation of LBM, visceral and sc AT with <20% error. In the obese such estimates show visceral AT to be a stronger risk predictor than other compartments or W/HR.