Body composition in spinal cord injury.

A study of body composition was conducted on 45 patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) and 12 able-bodied healthy subjects who served as controls. Body composition was assessed in terms of water (W), fat (F), protein (P), and mineral (M) content. SCI patients exhibited lower absolute amounts of W, F, and P, but no differences in the the amounts of these components when expressed relative (percentage) to gross body weight (BW). As estimated in this study, the amount of bone mass constituted a higher percentage of the gross BW. This suggests that, although SCI patients lose calcium in the early stages of the disease, the loss of weight that follows SCI is principally due to the loss of W, F, and P.