[Results of physiological and psychological studies of different body types. A study of 210 patients with cardiovascular diseases and 100 students (author's transl)].

210 male patients with myocardial infarction, functional cardiovascular diseases, and angina pectoris hospitalized in the course of a cardiac rehabilitation program had been studied. Missing data in some anthropometric variables reduced the sample to 199 patients. The body of data included various anthropometric variables and indices, parameters of the circulatory and respiratory systems, biochemical measures, personality questionnaires, and information about the psychosocial background. In order to replicate the findings a sample of 100 students was studied, too. The measures and indices of body type are influenced by age, which leads to age-dependent spurious correlations between body type and other variables if this dependency is not corrected. Different statistical approaches proved the superiority of a factor-analytic typisation based on a "body-breadth" and "body-size" factor. There is a low correlation between body type and disposition for certain diseases showing that patients with "athletic" or "pycnic" body build suffer preferably from coronary infarction. Significant differences between body types exist for blood pressure, physical fitness, several psychosocial data, and the number of previous courses of treatment. Correlations of body type with personality dimensions and bodily complaints did not occur.