Fingerprints white line counts (fWLC): An unfolding panacea of body composition estimation among students of selected tertiary institution in Kano State Nigeria

Abstract

The term "fingerprint white lines (fWL)" refers to a region of ridge hypoplasia that appears as white lines in a captured fingerprint, dubbed "white lines". The aim of this work was to see if there is any sexual dimorphism in fingerprint white line count (fWLC) and body composition parameters (BCP), as well as look into the relationship between the two. The study was a cross sectional design with 300 participants. The body composition parameters were measured using a bioelectric impedance machine. The fingerprint was captured using a live scanner to determine the fWLC. Females had considerably higher metabolic age, body fat, and visceral fat. In all ten digits, statistically significant differences in fWLC were found. Females were shown to have a higher fWLC, metabolic age, body fat, and visceral fat than males. Except for percent body fat, the fWLC revealed a significant negative correlation with all body composition indices. The fWLC of the left thumb correlates with percent visceral fat while the left and right middle fWLC showed a significant correlation with metabolic age. All ten digits fWLC had a strong link with percent body fat, percent muscle mass, and resting metabolism, with the left ring and thumb fWLC having a higher correlation. Thumb, index, middle, and little fWLC of the left digit, and middle and ring fWLC of the right digit are used to calculate BMI. The greatest predictors for BMI and percent body fat were found to be the left middle and right little digits fWLC. Left ring and right middle digit fWLC were the best predictors of percentage muscle mass and metabolic ages, respectively. Both resting metabolism and percent visceral fat were best predicted by the left thumb fWLC. Finally, sexual dimorphism in relation to BCP and fWLC was discovered.