The effects of high altitude on adolescent growth in southern Peruvian Amerindians.

Abstract

The growth in height, weight, and two thoracic diameters of three populations of southern Peruvian Amerindian children is described. The results indicate that altitude has an effect on the growth of height and weight during late childhood and a more dramatic effect on adolescent growth. Chest growth during this period appears to be very little affected. This finding may be explained by the hypothesis that chest growth is under different genetic control than the development of stature or weight and is relatively insensitive to the altitude-related environmental factors which affect general somatic growth rates. Several studies have demonstrated a slow rate of growth in human populations resident at high altitudes in the Andes (Frisancho and Baker, 1970; Haas, 1973; McClung, 1969). However, not all morphological structures appear to be equally affected during growth at high altitude. For example, Frisancho and Baker suggest that the growth of the chest dimensions may be accelerated while height and weight appear to be slowed. It is also possible that different stages of the life cycle may be unequally affected during development at high altitude. Periods of rapid growth such as adolescence may be more severely modified than periods of more leisurely growth such as childhood. The extent to which these responses are conditioned by the reduced oxygen pressure of high altitude is unclear. Other factors such as the limited energy availability in the Andean highaltitude ecosystem, a distinct genetic potential, or a combination of these may be responsible (Pawson, 1974; Thomas, 1973). It has not been possible to test these alternative hypotheses about child growth at high altitude in the Andes with the data available since low-altitude control populations were usually not available for comparison. In this report we describe the growth in height, weight, and chest dimensions of a sample of rural 1 Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802. Present address: Department of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106. 2Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802. 3Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853. Human Biology, May 1977, Vol. 49, No. 2, pp. 109-124. ® Wayne State University Press, 1977 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.53 on Thu, 01 Sep 2016 04:37:15 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 110 Cynthia M. Beali et al. low-altitude Peruvian children and adolescents and compare them with a previously described rural sample of the same age from high altitude. The results, which focus on adolescence, are considered in terms of the various hypotheses which have been offered to explain the high-altitude Andean growth characteristics.