Is bioelectrical impedance vector analysis a good indicator of nutritional status in children and adolescents?

Abstract

Objective: The study objective is to propose BIVA ellipses for the population and investigate its use to assess nutritional status through the BMI/age ratio and the cardiovascular risk through waist circumference (WC). Design: Age, weight, height and WC were recorded, along with the values of resistance (R), reactance (Xc) and phase angle (PA) by impedance. Student’s t-test and ANOVA were applied to ascertain the significance between means and a specific program was applied to investigate the significance between ellipses. Setting: Fortaleza, Brazil. Participants: A total of 467 students from public schools participated in the study: 120 children and 347 adolescents were evaluated, with respective means of age, weight and height of 8.2 years, 27.6 Kg and 1.29 m and 12.7 years, 48.6 Kg and 1.53 m. Results: The mean values of R/H, Xc/H and PA were 569.0 and 424.7 Ohm/m, 59.1 and 50.4 Ohm/m and, 5.9º and 6.8º for children and adolescents, respectively. The mean vectors for R/H and Xc/H show’s significant differences between for both age ranges and are inversely proportional to the BMI/A. As for WC, individuals without cardiovascular risk had higher R/H and lower Xc/H, but Xc and R in participants without cardiovascular risk were greater than with cardiovascular risk. Conclusions: It was possible to propose confidence and tolerance BIVA ellipses for children and adolescent’s clinical evaluation. The method was also suitable to identify cardiovascular risk ellipses in these age groups, but it was not possible to draw nutritional classifications ellipses by BMI/age data.

Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA)- Derived Phase Angle in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

“…In 15,605 children/adolescents, an increase of PhA across age groups was observed in either sex (1), while in 3085 children/adolescents a non‐linear trend with age was reported (2); the inspection of figures suggests a marked change of PhA from 4 to 8 years of age and after puberty. An increase of PhA with age was also reported by other studies in smaller groups of children/adolescents (9,22,23).…”

“…Differences in PhA depending on BMI have evaluated defining overweight and obesity using either BMI as such (1,36) or BMI Z‐score (23,35,37,38).…”

“…In light of the high worldwide prevalence of overweight/obesity observed in the first 2 decades of life (44), it is quite surprising that there are only a few studies in children/adolescents on the relationships of PhA with BMI or BC. Four studies found an increase of PhA in subjects with higher BMI or BMI Z-score (1,(35)(36)(37), whereas another one found no difference between adolescents with obesity and controls (23). PhA also correlated with BMI in normalweight adolescent athletes, possibly because of increased muscle tissue and maturation (1,30).…”

Age-, sex-, and maturity-associated variation in the phase angle after adjusting for size in adolescents

“…Available data consider mainly age-related variation in PhA in adolescents but do not control interindividual differences in the biological maturity status ( 13 , 26 , 47 – 49 ). Therefore, it appears reasonable to interpret that PhA is likely associated with increased cell mass with age ( 13 ).…”

Bioimpedance Vector Analysis for Heart Failure: Should We Put It on the Agenda?

“…BIVA is a portable, non-invasive, simple, and easy auxiliary examination, which dose not expose patients to ionizing radiation and is not affected by differences between observers and investigators (21). BIA works well in healthy subjects and subjects with chronic diseases and is suitable for different races, genders, and ages (22,23).…”