Subctuaneous A, Després J-P. Other methods like bio-impedance Subcutaneous fat measurementsSubcutaneous fat measurements calculations based on mexsurements or near infrared spectroscopy, are associated with major measurement errors and therefore of limited value 811 An optimum of brightness, gain and dynamic range was adjusted to improve tissue delineation.

Subcutaneous fat measurements -

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Correspondence to Dongmei Hao or Yanjun Zeng. Reprints and permissions. Wang, Y. et al. Measurement of subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness by near-infrared. Australas Phys Eng Sci Med 36 , — Download citation.

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Abstract Obesity is strongly associated with the risks of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and there is a need to measure the subcutaneous adipose tissue SAT layer thickness and to understand the distribution of body fat. Access this article Log in via an institution.

References Li C, Ford ES, McGuire LC et al Increasing trends in waist circumference and abdominal obesity among U. Obesity 15 1 — Article PubMed Google Scholar Aldhafiri F, Al-Nasser A, Al-Sugair A et al Obesity and metabolic syndrome in adolescent survivors of standard risk childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Saudi Arabia.

Pediatr Blood Cancer 59 1 — Article PubMed Google Scholar Kuller LH Nutrition, lipids, and cardiovascular disease. Nutr Rev 64 2 —26 Article Google Scholar Thomas C, Hypponen E, Power C Type 2 diabetes mellitus in midlife estimated from the Cambridge risk score and body mass index.

Arch Intern Med — Article PubMed Google Scholar Wang J, Thornton JC, Kolesnik S et al Anthropometry in body composition: an overview. Wiley, New York, pp — Google Scholar Siervo M, Jebb SA Body composition assessment: theory into practice: introduction of multicompartment models.

IEEE Eng M 29 1 —59 Article Google Scholar Brodie D, Moscrip V, Hutcheon R Body composition measurement: a review of hydrodensitometry, anthropometry, and impedance methods. Nutrition 14 3 — Article PubMed CAS Google Scholar Chae YS, Jeong MG, Kim D Three dimensional volume measurement of mouse abdominal fat in magnetic resonance images.

In: 9th international conference on e-health networking, application and services, pp — Leinhard OD, Johansson A, Rydell J et al Quantitative abdominal fat estimation using MRI. In: 19th international conference on pattern recognition, ICPR, pp 1—4 Ng JG, Rohling R, Lawrence PD Automatic measurement of human subcutaneous fat with ultrasound.

IEEE Ultras 56 8 — Article Google Scholar Cursino CMP, Galvao RRA, Freire RCS et al Subcutaneous fat tissue thickness measurement based on ultrasound. Diabet RE C — CAS Google Scholar Trebbels D, Fellhauer F, Jugl M et al Online tissue discrimination for transcutaneous needle guidance applications using broadband impedance spectroscopy.

IEEE Biomed 59 2 — Article Google Scholar Kinoshita M, Aoki H, Koshiji K Basic study on fat thickness estimation using electrical bio-impedance tomography. ITAB pp 91—94 Kim K, Lee M, Kim J et al Performance evaluation of the electrode configuration in bioelectrical impedance analysis for visceral fat measurement.

In: 31st annual international conference of the IEEE EMBS Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2—6 September , pp — Surovy NJ, Billah MM, Haowlader S et al Determination of abdominal fat thickness using dual electrode separation in the focused impedance method FIM.

Physiol Meas — Article PubMed Google Scholar Hwang JS Local body fat measurement device and method of operating the same. US patent Petrucelli S Device for detecting and displaying one or more of body weight, body fat percentage, blood pressure, pulse and environmental temperature.

US patent KIM YB, BAE YS Non-invasive measuring apparatus of subcutaneous fat thickness and method thereof. In: proceedings of the 28th IEEE EMBS annual international conference, New York, Aug 30—Sept 3, pp — Tafeit E, Möller R, Sudi K et al Artifical neural networks as a method to improve the precision of subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness measurements by means of the optical device Lipometer.

Comput Biol — Article CAS Google Scholar Jürimäe T, Jürimäe J, Wallner SJ et al Relationships between body fat measured by DXA and subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness measured by Lipometer in adults. J Physiol Anthropol 26 4 — Article PubMed Google Scholar Jürimä T, Sudi K, Jürimä J et al Validity of optical device Lipometer and bioelectric impedance analysis for body fat assessment in men and women.

Coll Antropol 29 2 — Google Scholar Hwang ID, Shin K Fat thickness measurement using optical technique with miniaturized chip LEDs. In: proceedings of the 29th annual international conference of the IEEE EMBS Cité Internationale, Lyon, 2—26 August pp — Song WJ, Zhang S, Yang YM et al The system of portable fat detector with dual-wavelength near-infrared light.

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Search for:. Home Nutrition News What Should I Eat? Role of Body Fat We may not appreciate body fat, especially when it accumulates in specific areas like our bellies or thighs. Types of Body Fat Fat tissue comes in white, brown, beige, and even pink.

Types Brown fat — Infants carry the most brown fat, which keeps them warm. It is stimulated by cold temperatures to generate heat. The amount of brown fat does not change with increased calorie intake, and those who have overweight or obesity tend to carry less brown fat than lean persons.

White fat — These large round cells are the most abundant type and are designed for fat storage, accumulating in the belly, thighs, and hips. They secrete more than 50 types of hormones, enzymes, and growth factors including leptin and adiponectin, which helps the liver and muscles respond better to insulin a blood sugar regulator.

But if there are excessive white cells, these hormones are disrupted and can cause the opposite effect of insulin resistance and chronic inflammation. Beige fat — This type of white fat can be converted to perform similar traits as brown fat, such as being able to generate heat with exposure to cold temperatures or during exercise.

Pink fat — This type of white fat is converted to pink during pregnancy and lactation, producing and secreting breast milk. Essential fat — This type may be made up of brown, white, or beige fat and is vital for the body to function normally. It is found in most organs, muscles, and the central nervous system including the brain.

It helps to regulate hormones like estrogen, insulin, cortisol, and leptin; control body temperature; and assist in the absorption of vitamins and minerals.

Very high amounts of subcutaneous fat can increase the risk of disease, though not as significantly as visceral fat. Having a lot of visceral fat is linked with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain cancers.

It may secrete inflammatory chemicals called cytokines that promote insulin resistance. How do I get rid of belly fat? Losing weight can help, though people tend to lose weight pretty uniformly throughout the body rather than in one place.

However, a long-term commitment to following exercise guidelines along with eating balanced portion-controlled meals can help to reduce dangerous visceral fat.

Also effective is avoiding sugary beverages that are strongly associated with excessive weight gain in children and adults. Bioelectric Impedance BIA BIA equipment sends a small, imperceptible, safe electric current through the body, measuring the resistance.

Underwater Weighing Densitometry or Hydrostatic Weighing Individuals are weighed on dry land and then again while submerged in a water tank.

Air-Displacement Plethysmography This method uses a similar principle to underwater weighing but can be done in the air instead of in water. Dilution Method Hydrometry Individuals drink isotope-labeled water and give body fluid samples. Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry DEXA X-ray beams pass through different body tissues at different rates.

Computerized Tomography CT and Magnetic Resonance Imaging MRI These two imaging techniques are now considered to be the most accurate methods for measuring tissue, organ, and whole-body fat mass as well as lean muscle mass and bone mass.

Is it healthier to carry excess weight than being too thin? References Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Adult obesity facts. Guerreiro VA, Carvalho D, Freitas P. Obesity, Adipose Tissue, and Inflammation Answered in Questions.

Journal of Obesity. Lustig RH, Collier D, Kassotis C, Roepke TA, Kim MJ, Blanc E, Barouki R, Bansal A, Cave MC, Chatterjee S, Choudhury M. Obesity I: Overview and molecular and biochemical mechanisms. Biochemical Pharmacology. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Body Mass Index: Considerations for practitioners. Kesztyüs D, Lampl J, Kesztyüs T. The weight problem: overview of the most common concepts for body mass and fat distribution and critical consideration of their usefulness for risk assessment and practice. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

World Health Organization. Body mass index — BMI. Berrington de Gonzalez A, Hartge P, Cerhan JR, Flint AJ, Hannan L, MacInnis RJ, Moore SC, Tobias GS, Anton-Culver H, Freeman LB, Beeson WL.

Body-mass index and mortality among 1. New England Journal of Medicine. Di Angelantonio E, Bhupathiraju SN, Wormser D, Gao P, Kaptoge S, de Gonzalez AB, Cairns BJ, Huxley R, Jackson CL, Joshy G, Lewington S.

Meanwhile more than 1. Overweight and obesity were estimated to account for 3. On the other hand, malnutrition and eating disorders can lead to underweight and body composition disturbances that are likely to result in severe diseases like anorexia nervosa, which is associated with alarming mental and physical implications and a high mortality rate 4 , 5 , 6 , 7.

Better protection of health and the development of improved diagnostic criteria and intervention control depend on the availability of accurate and reliable methods for assessing body composition. Ultrasound has been established as an accurate and reliable method for measuring subcutaneous adipose tissue SAT thicknesses when used in standardised way.

Over the past decades, many measurement techniques and equations have been developed for body composition assessment; among them are reference, laboratory, and field methods 8 , 9 , The body composition components can be analysed on the molecular or on the anatomical level.

The most accurate method for determining body fat on the molecular level is the 4-component model 8 , 11 , 12 that measures the hydration status D 2 O-diliution method , density underwater weighing or plethysmography , bone mineral density double X-ray absorptiometry, DXA , and determines the total body fat content TBF this way.

Other methods like bio-impedance BIA , or calculations based on skinfolds or near infrared spectroscopy, are associated with major measurement errors and therefore of limited value 8 , 11 , Manufacturers use different simplifying models and calculation algorithms which are necessary because two X-ray energies are not capable of distinguishing between three sorts of tissue bone, muscle, and fat.

There is also a difference in pencil versus fan-beam accuracy, and according to Aragon et al. On the anatomical level, cadaver dissections, skinfold thickness measurements, or medical imaging techniques like MRI, CT, and US are in use. It has been shown recently that US provides the highest measurement accuracy for thickness measurement of SAT 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 because image resolution can be as high as 0.

However, there are many inherent problems involved in all measurement techniques and in the assumptions they make 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 13 , Skinfold methods for measuring SAT thickness are of limited value because fat is highly compressible, and skin thickness, which is included in skinfold measurements, varies from site to site and among individuals 8 , 13 , Many methods that are widely used in field studies are not standardised sufficiently.

When the body composition status is assessed with multiple technologies, often results vary substantially because accuracy, reliability, or both are far from what should be expected from a good measurement technique 8 , Such results are confusing and not helpful for diagnosis or treatment control.

Particularly high demands on accuracy and reliability are necessary when investigating athletes, where body composition is a major performance determinant. Inaccurate measurements of body composition and its changes would be confusing and misleading: most athletes have very low body fat and therefore very high accuracy and reliability is necessary for detecting the small changes of relevance for performance optimisation, and also for monitoring the health status of the athletes in order to prevent severe diseases like anorexia nervosa or other medical and performance problems associated with eating disorders 19 , 20 , Most recently, the best techniques for measuring body composition have been summarised in Best Practice Protocols for Physique Assessment in Sport Application of poor methods in terms of accuracy and reliability or both can be misleading, particularly in competitive sports, and also in other groups where body composition is a crucial health factor like in anorexia nervosa patients this wide-spread severe disease is among the major medical problem in both female and male athletes 8 , 15 , Adipose tissue is mainly stored in the subcutaneous region of the body, but significant amounts can also be found near organs visceral adipose tissue, VAT , in the bone marrows, and within tissues, e.

in muscle 9 , Adipose tissue consists of adipocytes and embedded collagen and elastin fibres which support the tissue US was used for SAT thickness measurements in and already 24 , Bellisari et al. found that inter- and intra-observer errors were less than 0.

US has also been applied for measuring visceral fat. Koda et al. US is the only imaging method capable of measuring both the thickness of the fat layer with and without the embedded structures 14 , 15 , 16 , The applicability of this novel approach in groups with overweight and obesity has been shown by Störchle et al.

Eight sites are used to represent the trunk three , the arms two , and the legs three. US images of all sites show a simple structure: skin, SAT, muscle fascia. The sites were selected such that the thickness of the layer does not change appreciably in the vicinity of the site; this increases reliability.

Site marking is easy and can be learned with high precision within short time one hour training is sufficient. All distances necessary to define the sites are relative to the body height of the person. This highly accurate and reliable US approach avoids compression artefacts, distinguishes between fat tissue and embedded structures, is not invasive, does not use ionising radiation, and is easily applicable in the field.

However, it cannot be assumed that the mean thickness value of these eight standardised sites that were selected for fat patterning analyses is the best representation of the real mean SAT thickness which is needed to calculate the fat mass. Therefore, extended measurement series containing many more and randomly selected sites are necessary to calibrate the mean obtained from the eight standardised sites 16 , In a group of ten male participants Table 1 , subcutaneous adipose tissue SAT was measured twice at eight standardised sites using a recently developed ultrasound US method 16 , As an example, the US image of SAT at one of the eight standardised sites lateral thigh, LT is shown in Fig.

In addition, SAT was also measured with the same US technique at sites that were randomly distributed all over the body Fig.

The sums of the eight SAT thicknesses D of all 10 participants are shown in Table 2 , and mean values of these eight measurements d M8 are presented in Table 3.

Table 2 also presents the surface areas S of the participants according to DuBois 29 , Haycock 30 , and Mosteller 31 , and also the means S M of these three. Ultrasound US measurement of mean subcutaneous adipose tissue SAT. a,b exemplarily show randomly distributed measurement sites on the upper body of one of the ten participants.

c Schematic drawing according to Lund and Browder 32 indicating the 12 body parts. The segment genitalia was ignored in our study. d Example of an evaluated US image. The red area represents the SAT in the region of interest ROI.

Marked are: the thick layer of US gel which prevents compression , the epidermis, dermis, SAT, embedded fibrous structure, the fascia of the muscle, and the muscle underneath. The d I value includes the thickness of the fibrous structures, d E represents the SAT without fibrous structures.

The measurements at the sites resulted in the reference means of SAT thicknesses for each of the participants Table 3.

A comparison of the SAT means obtained with the eight standardised sites 16 , 17 is presented in Fig. Means of typically 50 to measurements obtained from each US image were used to represent the SAT thickness at a given individual site. Mean SAT thicknesses. Black columns are the means d M8 obtained from the measurements at the eight standardised sites.

White columns are the means obtained from sites d M of each of the ten male participants. The participants P1 to P10 are ordered according to increasing means of d IM8. The columns labelled d IM and d EM represent the mean values of the ten participants.

the mean of all US measurements, each of them is a mean of typically 50 to thickness measurements in each of the US images. a Mean thickness values including the embedded fibrous structures d IM.

b Mean thickness values excluding the embedded fibrous structures d EM. The mean thicknesses obtained from the eight standardised sites deviated from the means obtained from the randomised sites. The factor k represents this for the individual ten participants Table 4.

The table also shows the factors when the eight-site measurements are compared to the site measurements the measurement series of sites was taken in two series of sites each.

The k-values corresponding to measurements with fibrous structures included I , and without E , are shown in Fig. Mean k values were 0. Mean SAT thicknesses at eight standardised sites compared to measurements at and at sites. Ten participants were measured at sites in two series of sites each distributed randomly all over the body compare to Fig.

The ten participants are ordered according to increasing mean SAT thickness d IM8. The factors for SAT thicknesses i ncluding fibrous structures I are shown in a , and the comparisons with the two subgroups of sites each are shown in b.

c,d display the factors for thicknesses with fibrous structures e xcluded E. The correlation coefficient R² was 0. Application of the calibration factor k.

In a and c d M8, k is displayed over d M Data was normally distributed. Mean SAT thicknesses of the 11 body segments BS head, neck, anterior trunk, posterior trunk, upper arms, forearms, hands, buttocks, thighs, legs, an feet d M,BS are presented in Fig.

The columns represent the percentages of the SAT volumes and thus also of the fat mass percentages of the 11 body segments. Mean SAT thicknesses d M,BS at the 11 body segments BS. The individual values of the ten male participants are shown in Table 5.

a Mean SAT thickness of each segment compare to Fig. b Data for thicknesses where fibrous structures were excluded d EM,BS. The mean SAT thicknesses M I, and M E, mean of SAT thickness measurements of all 10 participants measured at sites each were 3.

A representative mean SAT value is important for correct calculation of the total subcutaneous adipose tissue SAT mass. For this purpose, the mean obtained from the eight sites needs to be calibrated by a representative mean obtained from a large number of sites distributed randomly all over the body.

The classification of body segments according to Lund and Browder Fig. This would amount to 54 the genital area was neglected. Several series of 54 sites in the same individual pilot study, not shown indicated that scattering of the means of the 54 sites was too high for the purpose of this calibration study.

When using sites, scattering is still noticeable as can be seen in Fig. Therefore, we used sites corresponding to about one site per dm 2 in adults. The mean values of the individual calibration factors Table 4 were 0.

Each thickness measurement at an individual site was represented by the mean of typically thickness values depending on the breath of ROI setting measured by the evaluation software amounting to more than , thickness values.

The means obtained from the eight sites for each individual participant in this group of male participants ranged from 2. The mean of eight sites used in the standardised ultrasound method for studying SAT patterning 16 , 17 overestimated the mean obtained from randomly distributed sites in all individual cases Fig.

This overestimation is not surprising as the standardised eight sites were developed to investigate the fat patterning of the body and therefore includes some of the main fat depot areas for subcutaneous fat deposition femero-gluteal region, back, and anterior abdominal wall.

These fat depot areas are represented by five of the eight sites FT, LT, ES, UA, and LA. For the measurement series at eight sites d IM8, k compared to sites d IM , R 2 was 0. This scattering transforms linearly when the calibrated mean SAT thickness d IM8, k or d EM8, k for the assessment of SAT without fibrous structures0 is used for calculating total SAT volume according to: volume is mean thickness times surface area S S can be measured accurately by a calibrated scanning system, or determined approximately according to surface area formulas 29 , 30 , Detailed SAT and fat density values of humans as functions of site, temperature, age, and hydration status are missing.

Ethics permission for such studies of human SAT in our lab is given already, and these measurements will start in due course. All imaging methods that can be used for fat mass determination based on volumetry will benefit from accurately determined SAT density in humans.

Determination of SAT mass or pure subcutaneous fat mass by US as used here does not capture visceral fat. Attempts to assess visceral fat by US have been made by other groups 37 , 34 , however, US only detects surrogate parameters like intra-abdominal distances.

MRI is capable of measuring visceral fat, although fat layer thickness measurements do not reach the accuracy of US thickness measurements because the pixel size is typically 1. Development of improved MRI methods towards higher standards for fat studies is in progress in our laboratory. Comparisons of SAT measured by US with VAT measured by MRI will show the possibilities and limitations of total body fat TBF assessment on the anatomical level based on US SAT measurements solely.

However, there may be outliers, particularly in groups with obesity or extreme underweight. The studies in progress will also show whether a combined approach US SAT measurements and anthropometric indices like W will improve the assessment accuracy.

In our group of ten male participants, BMI ranged from In groups with underweight, SAT thickness of fat depots may get closer to the SAT thickness of other sites; preliminary studies indicate that a higher calibration factor can be expected in such cases.

The investigation presented here includes young white Caucasian males. Therefore, similar studies with females, and with other ethnic groups will be of interest, although it would be surprising when results deviated substantially in such cases because the eight sites cover a representative set of fat depot sites, and differences from site to site in different groups can be expected to equal out to a large extend when means of all eight sites are taken.

A future focus should also be on older adults and on children, who are not included here. Eight representative sites were chosen because the development of the US method started out from the eight sites that have been used since many years by ISAK International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry for skinfold measurements 14 , 15 , It turned out that several of these ISAK sites are not well suited for US measurements because of complex underlying anatomical structures that are difficult to interpret , and that marking of these sites is difficult and time consuming.

Therefore, most of them had to be replaced by new ones; however, the number of eight sites remained. Data mining studies will show whether this number or possibly a reduced number of sites will be the optimum choice for SAT and for TBF mass assessment based on US.

For competitive male athletes, according to the above-mentioned preliminary schedule, the desirable range is 2. For anthropometric data see Table 1.

The standardised eight sites described by Müller et al. Two measurement series were performed and the mean was used. Sites were marked on the right side of the body in a standing UA, LA, LT or sitting ES position or with the arm DT, BR , or the leg FT and MC supported.

All US measurements at these eight sites were made with the participants lying in a supine UA, LA, BR, FT , prone ES; DT or rotated position LT, MC 16 , The sites were randomly distributed all over the body Fig. Eleven body segments Fig.

However, it is extremely difficult to find such a high number of useful sites on hands and feet because of many vessels and complex anatomical structures there.

Therefore, only half of the corresponding site numbers were measured and these values were considered twice. As it is very inconvenient for the participant to measure 16 sites on the head, therefore the same approach was used for the head too. US imaging is based on the pulse-echo technique.

A series of US pulses each several wavelengths long is sent into a given tissue. Goss et al.

New research shows little risk of infection from prostate measkrements. Discrimination at Subcutaneous fat measurements is Subcutaneous fat measurements to Subcutanfous blood pressure. Icy fingers and toes: Poor circulation or Raynaud's phenomenon? Unlike fat parked on the hips and thighs, fat around the middle produces substances that can create serious health risks. No matter what your body shape, excess fat isn't good for your health.