LAUSR

TO THE EDITOR: The recent Perspective of Abe et al. (1) is a valuable contribution to the topic of quantitative relationships between the fat and the fat-free components of the body. They utilized published data relating to six different programs of dietary restriction, mostly combined with exercise. My aim here is to link their approach to those of related studies on adults in which exercise programs are not involved (2,3). These concern the influence of fat mass (FM) on lean (i.e., fat-free) mass (LM), quantified by the ratio ΔLM/ΔFM, in which Δ denotes difference or change.