Abstract

Background
Obesity is associated with various chronic diseases, especially abdominal fat affect cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, diabetes mellitus and mortality. The aim of this study was to estimate the accuracy of the visceral fat area measured by bioelectric impedence analysis (BIA) that easily used in many clinical settings, and to compare with the visceral fat area measured by CT and other abdominal obesity measures. Methods: Participants were 71 premenopausal adult women whose BMI was over 23 kg/m2. BMI, waist circumference, total abdominal fat area, visceral fat area, subcutaneous fat area by CT and truncal fat by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) were measured. Visceral fat area measured by Inbody 720 were compared with variables examining abdominal obesity using partial correlation analysis and Bland-Altman analysis. The accuracy of the visceral obesity by BIA was compared with that diagnosed by CT as gold standard. Results: There was significant difference between visceral fat area measured by CT and BIA in women below BMI 30 kg/m2, whereas the difference was not significant in women with BMI ≥ kg/m2. Visceral fat area measured by BIA was significantly correlated with visceral fat area measured by CT only in subjects with BMI less than 30 kg/m2 after adjusting for age (r = 0.495, P < 0.01). Bland-Altman plot analysis showed a tendency regardless of BMI status; the more visceral fat area increased, the less the difference between two measures. The sensitivity and the specificity to diagnose visceral obesity by BIA was 50.0%, 81.8% respectively among women with BMI less than 30 kg/m2, and 100.0%, 25.0% respectively among women with BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2. Conclusion: BIA is not appropriate for evaluation of abdominal visceral obesity.

• Keywords: Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis; Visceral Fat Area; Abdominal Obesity