Concluding Remarks

Abstract

Prior to the introduction of modern techniques for estimating body composition one was limited to conclusions drawn from metabolic balance, and analogies from animal experiments. Although the balance technique can assess changes in body composition, it cannot provide information on actual body content of any element. In this respect the techniques described in previous chapters have a distinct advantage. Furthermore, they offer the opportunity of monitoring relatively long-term changes in body composition, a procedure that although theoretically possible is extremely difficult to achieve in practice by the metabolic balance method. As a result we have acquired a host of new information on growth and aging, on sex differences in body composition, and on changes that take place in response to various influences, nutritional and otherwise. We now have the means of monitoring changes in body composition by methods that require relatively little cooperation on the part of the subject and that pose a negligible hazard.