Abstract
We determined the age loss of body surface area (DuBois) in a cross-sectional and longitudinal combined study of 209 men and women aged between 40 and 96 from a rural region in the northwest of Spain. We established a secular growth trend of 1.01 ± 0.30 mm per year, observable in this region since 1880, in 424 men joining the army between 1850 and 1970. Even after consideration of this growth trend, the loss of body surface area was shown to be strongly associated with age in adults of both sexes, with up to 2.5% loss per year in the oldest participants. Similarly the loss of body height becomes an individually dramatic process, in the sense that proportions of the body are no longer preserved. The secular growth trend in this region started long before the improvement of living conditions, commonly cited as causally involved in acceleration processes.
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