Standing 8-Electrode Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis as an Alternative Method to Estimate Visceral Fat Area and Body Fat Mass in Athletes

Ling-Chun Lee; Pi-Shan Hsu; Kuen-Chang Hsieh; Yu-Yawn Chen; Lee-Ping Chu; Hsueh-Kuan Lu; Yen-Chen Chiu; Lin Li; Chung-Liang Lai

doi:10.2147/IJGM.S281418

Standing 8-Electrode Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis as an Alternative Method to Estimate Visceral Fat Area and Body Fat Mass in Athletes

Int J Gen Med. 2021 Feb 24:14:539-548. doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S281418. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Ling-Chun Lee^#¹, Pi-Shan Hsu^#^{2

3}, Kuen-Chang Hsieh^{4

5

6}, Yu-Yawn Chen⁷, Lee-Ping Chu⁸, Hsueh-Kuan Lu⁹, Yen-Chen Chiu¹⁰, Lin Li¹¹, Chung-Liang Lai^{12

13}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physical Education, Chinese Culture University, Taipei, Taiwan.
² Department of Family Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
³ Graduate Institute of Microbiology and Public Health, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁴ Fundamental Education Center, National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁵ Big Data Center, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁶ Office of Physical Education, Fu Jen Catholic University, New Taipei, Taiwan.
⁷ Division of Food Nutrition, National Taitung Junior College, Taitung, Taiwan.
⁸ Department of Orthopedics, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁹ General Education Center, National Taiwan University of Sport, Taichung, Taiwan.
¹⁰ Department of Exercise Health Science, National Taiwan University of Sport, Taichung, Taiwan.
¹¹ Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Taichung Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taichung, Taiwan.
¹² Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Puzi Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Chiayi, Taiwan.
¹³ Department of Occupational Therapy, Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the potential of standing 8-electrode bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) for assessing visceral fat area (VFA) and body fat mass (BFM) in athletes.

Materials and methods: A total of 95 subjects (50 males and 45 females) were recruited. VFA and BFM measurements were obtained using three standing 8-electrode BIA devices, InBody230, InBody770, and IOI353. These acquired VFA and BFM were expressed as VFA_IOI353, VFA_InBody230, VFA_InBody770 V, BFM_IOI353, BFM_InBody230, and BFM_InBody770, respectively. As reference measurement, the VFA acquired from computer tomography (CT) was expressed as VFA_CT, and the BFM measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) was denoted as BFM_DXA.

Results: The coefficient of determination (r²) in regression analysis between the measurements by VFA_IOI353, VFA_InBody230, VFA_InBody770 and VFA_CT were 0.425, 0.492, and 0.473, respectively. Also, the limits of agreement (LOA) obtained from Bland-Altman analysis were -25.18 to 56.62, -29.74 to 62.44, and -32.96 to 71.93 cm². For BFM, r² in regression analysis between the measurements by BFM_IOI353, BFM_InBody230, BFM_InBody770 and BMF_DXA were 0.894, 0.950, and 0.955, respectively; LOA were -7.21 to 5.75, -4.70 to 4.05, and -5.48 to 3.05 kg, respectively.

Conclusion: The results showed when assessing BFM, these instruments delivered comparable measurements, and the degree of agreement ranged from excellent to moderate compared with the reference method. However, when assessing VFA, the agreements were weak. Therefore, the application of standing 8-electrode BIA devices for assessing athletes' VFA still needs improvement.

Keywords: bioelectrical impedance analysis; body fat mass; visceral fat area.