Somatotype Characteristics of Patients with Non-Dialysis Chronic Kidney Disease and its Relationships with Physical Activity and Depression

Abstract

Somatotype characters have been defined for many diseases. However, there is insufficient information on the somatotype characters of chronic kidney patients. The first aim of our study was to define the specific somatotype in patients diagnosed with CKD. The second aim was to investigate the relationship between somatotype characters and physical activity and depression in CKD patients. A total of 88 (52.7 %) patients diagnosed with CKD between January and December 2021 at the Department of Nephrology, Inonu University Hospital (Malatya, Turkey) and 79 (47.3 %) healthy volunteers were included in the study. Somatotype analysis was performed using the Heath-Carter method. Physical activity was assessed with the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and depressive symptoms with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Analysis revealed that patients had greater medial calf girth (p = 0.036), higher triceps (p = 0.007) and suprailiac (p = 0.042) skinfold thicknesses and higher body mass index (p = 0.007) compared to controls. Patients also had significantly higher endomorphy (patients: 6.57±1.35 vs. controls: 6.04±1.3; effect size (ES): 0.40, p=0.010) and significantly higher mesomorphy (patients: 7.44±2 vs. controls: 6.85±2.3; ES: 0.27, p=0.039) as well as significantly lower ectomorphy (patients: 0.71±0.69 vs. controls: 1.10±0.93; ES: 0.47, p=0.006). Significant positive correlations were also observed between mesomorphy and IPAQ (rho = 0.219, p = 0.04), endomorphy and BDI (rho = 0.423, p < 0.001) and mesomorphy and BDI (rho = 0.392, p > 0.001). Significant negative correlations were observed between ectomorph and BDI (rho = -0.325, p = 0.002). We observed that the dominant somatotype was endomorphic mesomorph in patients with CKD. In addition, the fact that CKD patients with ectomorphic body structure have lower depressive symptoms could have an impact on their well-being.