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New bioimpedance analysis system: improved phenotyping with whole-body analysis

Abstract

Objective: Bioimpedance analysis (BIA) is a potential field and clinical method for evaluating skeletal muscle mass (SM) and %fat. A new BIA system has 8-(two on each hand and foot) rather than 4-contact electrodes allowing for rapid ‘whole-body’ and regional body composition evaluation.

Design: This study evaluated the 50 kHz BC-418 8-contact electrode and TBF-310 4-contact electrode foot–foot BIA systems (Tanita Corp., Tokyo, Japan).

Subjects: There were 40 subject evaluations in males (n=20) and females (n=20) ranging in age from 6 to 64 y. BIA was evaluated in each subject and compared to reference lean soft-tissue (LST) and %fat estimates in the appendages and remainder (trunk+head) provided by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Appendicular LST (ALST) estimates from both BIA and DXA were used to derive total body SM mass.

Results: The highest correlation between total body LST by DXA and impedance index (Ht2/Z) by BC-418 was for the foot–hand segments (r=0.986; left side only) compared to the arm (r=0.970–0.979) and leg segments (r=0.942–0.957)(all P<0.001). The within- and between-day coefficient of variation for %fat and ALST evaluated in five subjects was <1% and 1–3.7%, respectively. The correlations between 8-electrode predicted and DXA appendicular (arms, legs, total) and trunk+head LST were strong and highly significant (all r0.95, P<0.001) and group means did not differ across methods. Skeletal muscle mass calculated (Kim equation) from total ALST by DXA (X±s.d.)(23.7±9.7 kg) was not significantly different and highly correlated with BC-418 estimates (25.2±9.6 kg; r=0.96, P<0.001). There was a good correlation between total body %fat by 8-electrode BIA vs DXA (r=0.87, P<0.001) that exceeded the corresponding association with 4-electrode BIA (r=0.82, P<0.001). Group mean segmental %fat estimates from BC-418 did not differ significantly from corresponding DXA estimates. No between-method bias was detected in the whole body, ALST, and skeletal muscle analyses.

Conclusions: The new 8-electrode BIA system offers an important new opportunity of evaluating SM in research and clinical settings. The additional electrodes of the new BIA system also improve the association with DXA %fat estimates over those provided by the conventional foot–foot BIA.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants RR00645 and NIDDK 42618. Dr St-Onge is supported by a fellowship from Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

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Guarantor: A Pietrobelli.

Contributors: A Pietrobelli designed and coordinated the project, literature review. F Rubiano and M-P St-Onge were involved in documentation and literature review; SB Heymsfield was involved in literature review, documentation review and project adviser. All authors contributed to the preparation of this paper.

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Correspondence to A Pietrobelli.

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Pietrobelli, A., Rubiano, F., St-Onge, MP. et al. New bioimpedance analysis system: improved phenotyping with whole-body analysis. Eur J Clin Nutr 58, 1479–1484 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601993

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