Comparison of Standing Posture Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis with DXA for Body Composition in a Large, Healthy Chinese Population

Abstract

Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) is a common method for assessing body composition in research and clinical trials. BIA is convenient but when compared with other reference methods, the results have been inconclusive. The level of obesity degree in subjects is considered to be an important factor affecting the accuracy of the measurements. A total of 711 participants were recruited in Taiwan and were sub-grouped by gender and levels of adiposity. Regression analysis and Bland-Altman analysis were used to evaluate the agreement of the measured body fat percentage (BF%) between BIA and DXA. The BF% measured by the DXA and BIA methods (Tanita BC-418) were expressed as BF%DXA and BF%BIA8, respectively. A one-way ANOVA was used to test the differences in BF% measurements by gender and levels of adiposity. The estimated BF%BIA8 and BF%DXA in the all subjects, male and female groups were all highly correlated (r = 0.934, 0.901, 0.916, all P< 0.001). The average estimated BF%BIA8 (22.54 ± 9.48%) was significantly lower than the average BF%DXA (26.26 ± 11.18%). The BF%BIA8 was overestimated in the male subgroup (BF%DXA< 15%), compared to BF%DXA by 0.45%, respectively. In the other subgroups, the BF%BIA8 values were all underestimated. Standing BIA estimating body fat percentage in Chinese participants have a high correlation, but underestimated on normal and high obesity degree in both male and female subjects.

A Multidomain Approach to Assessing the Convergent and Concurrent Validity of a Mobile Application When Compared to Conventional Methods of Determining Body Composition

“…When evaluating our results in the context of a well-powered comparison of BIA and DXA, circumstantial evidence suggests LS3D may approximate DXA. Chen et al compared BF% measured by a similar 8 electrode BIA (Tanita BC-418) and DXA in a sample of 711 Chinese participants [40]. When our data are superimposed with Chen et al (Figure 4), their similarities become apparent-LS3D and DXA both measure higher values than BIA with a similar bias (3.7% vs. 4.8%) and comparable span of LoA (16.4% and 17.0%).…”

“…In the determination BF%, LS2D exhibited higher agreement than LS3D with BIA and skinfold methods. However, a comparison with reference literature suggests LS3D has high agreement with DXA [40]. In the assessment of WHR, LS3D demonstrated high agreement relative to Gulick tape despite poor agreement on absolute waist and hip circumferences.…”

“…Our validity measures are congruent with existing literature comparing conventional methods used to estimate BF%. In two comparisons to DXA-the current gold standard-Chen et al reported that BIA underestimated DXA by −3.7% with an LoA that spanned 16.4% (n = 711) and MacDonald et al reported that the Department of Defense equations underestimate DXA by 4.8% with an LoA that spanned 13.5% (n = 148) [27,40]. In our comparison between conventional methods, BIA underestimated skinfolds by 1.7% with LoA spanning 14.6% (n = 163).…”

Comparison of Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis and Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry for Total and Segmental Bone Mineral Content with a Three-Compartment Model

“…Violation of the assumptions may produce errors in the analysis of body composition. Obese subjects are known to have lower water content of fat free mass, it is not surprising that BIA devices underestimate the BF% in obese subjects [18]. To avoid errors from violating BIA assumptions, this study recruited healthy adults with a mean BMI of 23.3 ± 3.6 kg/m 2 , which was about the BMI cut-off point for overweight in Asian populations.…”

Correlation of body composition parameters using different methods among Brazilian obese adults

“…Others researches have found similar results when evaluating %BF 12,13,16 , although only one of them assessed others BIA-derived parameters in obese patients with resembling findings as ours 12 . It has to be said that variables like age, gender, ethnicity, degree of obesity; BIA devices and equations may influence the agreement between both techniques 24,25 .…”