Effects of altitude, ethnicity-religion, geographical distance, and occupation on adult anthropometric characters of eastern Himalayan populations.

With a view to estimating the effect of altitude on body dimensions vis-à-vis ethnicity-religion, geographical distance, and occupation, a comprehensive multivariate statistical analysis was performed on data pertaining to 16 anthropometric characters collected from 1,103 individuals (643 males and 460 females) belonging to two ethnic groups-Sherpa and Lepcha. Samples were drawn from several locations in the eastern Himalayan region-Darjeeling and Kalimpong in West Bengal (India), and Nepal, situated at low (1,000-2,000 meters) and high (above 3,500 meters) altitudes. The individuals sampled practice different occupations and follow different religions. Significant age and sex effects were observed. The data were age-adjusted, and sexes were treated separately. A test of equality of mean vectors indicated heterogeneity among population groups. Almost all characters were found to contribute significantly to the ability to discriminate between the groups. The overall probability of correctly classifying an individual based on body dimensions into the group in which she or he actually belongs was high (between 0.64 and 0.77). Shape and size factors could be identified that explained about 50% of the total variance and yielded a reasonable separation of the groups. Results of four different types of multivariate statistical analyses were in agreement, and showed that altitude is most highly associated with body dimensions.