Comparative study on the morphological and physiological growth change in the higher non-human primates within a peri-adolescent period.

我们检验了一种假设，即肥胖是包括人类在内的高等灵长类动物开始青春期生长的关键，这是通过脂肪积累的百分比来衡量的。第一步，我们分析了日本猕猴（Macaca fuscata）和黑猩猩（Pan troglodytes）的横断面体细胞生长数据。从TW2成熟得分来看，黑猩猩骨骼发育的生长曲线、距离曲线和速度曲线与人类相似，但发育迟缓的“少年期”较短，从速度峰值年龄到完全成熟的时间较长。从我们设计的体质指数和反映皮下脂肪堆积相对量的皮褶厚度的角度，研究了日本猕猴随生长的生理变化。由体重和前干长度计算得出的体格指数男女出生时均约为100，成年雌鼠约为110，成年雄鼠约为120。该指数随着年龄的增长而下降，从婴儿期到青春期开始，男性为90，女性为95。在两性中，从女性和男性分别从3岁和4岁迅速增加到4岁和5岁。因此，在人类身上发现的青春期体质变胖的现象，在日本猴子身上也发现了。体质变化和青春期开始的时间顺序应该纵向研究，因为这两种现象的年龄差异可能很小（可能是三个月或六个月）。横断面分析不能清楚地显示皮下脂肪是否在青春期积累。对日本猕猴进行了纵向生长研究，采用短时间间隔收集数据。研究表明，季节性生长加速/减速与青春期突发性生长加速重叠，但后者早于青春期（生殖成熟），雌性和雄性分别发生在3.5岁和4.5岁。体质指数和皮褶厚度均在青春期前从夏季到冬季开始增加。青春期生长研究的下一步是定量分析身体成分，不仅是相对成分，而且是绝对成分，包括全身脂肪的测量。少

We examined a hypothesis that the fatness is a key for initiating the adolescent growth in the higher primates including human, which is measured by, for example percent fat accumulated. As for the first step, we analyzed the cross-sectional somatic growth data of the Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Growth curves, distance and velocity curves of skeletal development in the chimpanzees in terms of TW2 maturation scores, showed that the curves look much like those of humans but with the short "juvenile phase" of delayd development period, and with the longer period from the age at peak velocity to that at the full maturation.Physical change with growth was examined for Japanese macaques, from the view point of physique index which we have devised, and skinfold thickness which indicates the relative amount of subcutaneous fat accumulation. The physique index wihch is calculated from body weight and anterior trunk length is ca.100 at birth in both sexe … More s and approximately 110 in adult females and 120 in adult males. The index decreases with age from infantile period by the beginning of adolescent period, to 90 in males and 95 in females. It turns to rapidly increase in the two sexes from three and four years of age in females and males respectively to four and five years of age respectively. Thus, the phenomenon that the physique becomes fatty in the adolescent period which has been found for humans is also found in Japanese monkeys. Time order in the physique change and the beginning of puberty should be studied longitudinally because the difference in the ages of the two phenomena might be little (probably three or six months). Cross-sectional analyzes could not show clearly whether the subcutaneous fat is accumulated in the period of adolescence.Longitudinal growth study was made on Japanese monkeys with the collection of data by short interval. The study showed that the seasonal growth acceleration/deceleration and the adolescent spurt-like accelerated growth are overlapped with each other, but the latter comes earlier than the puberty (reproductive maturation) which occurred at 3.5 and 4.5 years of age in females and in males respectively. Both of physique index and skinfold thickness increase preceding puberty from summer to the beginning of winter.Next step of the peri-adolescent growth study is to analyze quantitatively the body composition, not only relatively but also absolutely including the measurement of whole body fat. Less