Secular trends in body height in Balkan populations from 1945 to 1995

Abstract

The aim of this study was to look for any secular trend in the stature of Balkan populations from the time of World War II (1939-1945) to the Balkans War (1991-1995). The research was based on the examination of exhumed skeletons of 202 men killed in World War II in the area of the Republic of Slovenia, and 243 men killed in the Bosnian War in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The length measurements of the right and left humerus, femur, tibia and fibula were taken. Since the results revealed no significant differences and the left-sided bones were more complete and recurrent in the sample, the bones of the left side were used in the analysis. Since the increase in height depends mostly on the increase in length of the long bones, with an average absolute change of about 0.28 cm for humerus, 0.55 cm for femur, 0.49 cm for tibia and 0.20 cm for fibula per decade in our case, these results suggest a significant increase of the height of the Balkans population. The difference of the sum of the average femur and tibia length for the study period was 4.13 cm. Recalculated average length increase of the sum length of femur and tibia per decade was 0.88 cm for the left side. Our study revealed that there was a trend towards increased long bone lengths, at least in the male population analyzed.

Role of Helicobacter pylori Infection in Body Height of Adult Dyspeptic Patients

“…Populations around the world display different secular trends in height in the past century on the basis of their socioeconomic, life style, and rescue from the wars . The Sardinian population after World War II experienced a dramatic economic and social advancement .…”

“…In addition, the increase in average height spanning over a century (secular trend) makes difficult to draw definite conclusions about the role of H. pylori infection and growth [34]. Populations around the world display different secular trends in height in the past century on the basis of their socioeconomic, life style, and rescue from the wars [35][36][37][38][39]. The Sardinian population after World War II experienced a dramatic economic and social advancement [22].…”

Secular Changes on the Stature Reconstruction from Hand and Foot Dimensions among Sikhs of Delhi

“…The key objective in physical anthropology is to document the vast range of human variability of past and present populations, and to investigate the evolutionary and environmental forces responsible for that variation [26]. Table 1 showed mean values of both the studies.…”

“…Such changes have been documented in the stature. A secular trend in increase in height has been observed in developed countries since the late 19th century, mainly due to improvement in nutritional status as a result of ISSN: 2472-3800 socioeconomic development [24][25][26]. Mamidi et al [25], analyzed secular trend in height in a very large sample from different states of India and reported that, the increments in height for men and women were 0.50 cm per decade (p < 0.001) and 0.22 cm per decade (p < 0.001), respectively.…”