Agreement and reproducibility of a portable electrical impedance myography device for body fat percentage estimation in normal weight men and women

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the agreement and reproducibility of a portable electrical impedance myography device (EIM - SKULPT®) for body fat percentage (BF%) estimation in young adults. Sixty young adults volunteered for the study (women, n=30, 25.0±7.7 years; 21.5±1.9 kg/m2; and men, n=30, 21.6±6.3 years; 22.5±1.8 kg/m2). Participants underwent air displacement plethysmography (ADP) and EIM measurements for agreement analysis. EIM was performed three times on the same day for the within-day reproducibility analysis. Seven days later, 37 participants repeated the EIM measurements for the between-days reproducibility analysis. Comparisons of EIM and ADP methods, and EIM repeated measurements were performed with the paired T-test or one-way ANOVA repeated measures, the Bland-Altman plot, and simple linear regressions. BF% was higher (p<0.05) when estimated by EIM (19.91 ± 5.70 for men, and 30.77 ± 5.89 for women) compared to ADP (15.28 ± 5.66 for men, and 27.31 ± 5.98 for women). The Bland-Altman analysis presented a bias of 4.4% (95%CI=-3.4–12.2) and linear regression presented an R2=0.78. For between-days reproducibility, EIM means did not differ (25.33±7.69 and 24.94±8.30, p=0.890). Thus, while the EIM device exhibited high reproducibility of BF% estimates, caution should be exercised when comparing the results with other techniques for measuring BF%. The EIM device overestimated BF% compared to ADP. However, the EIM measurements presented very good within-day and between-days reproducibility and, thus, the EIM device can be used for longitudinal monitoring of BF%.