Skinfold caliper and ultrasound assessments of change in the distribution of subcutaneous fat during adolescent pregnancy

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study compares skinfold caliper and sonographic measurements of the amount and distribution of subcutaneous adipose tissue teenagers gain during pregnancy to test three hypotheses: (1) skinfold caliper and sonographic measurements of subcutaneous adiposity are highly correlated in pregnancy; (2) the extent to which the skinfold caliper heads compact the tissues increases during gestation; and (3) skinfold caliper measurements yield a smaller estimate of the amount of subcutaneous adipose tissue gained during gestation than do sonographic measurements. METHODS: We studied 28 primiparous teenagers at 10.7 AE 2.8 and 29.6 AE 1.8 weeks gestation. At both study visits subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness was measured at six body sites, first by skinfold caliper and then by ultrasound. Taking the nearly compression-free sonographic measurements as the standard, we quantified the extent to which the skinfold caliper heads compacted the tissues at each measurement site by computing the percentage compression: (mean adipose tissue thickness by ultrasound 7 (0.5Âmean adipose tissue thickness by caliper)=mean adipose tissue thickness by ultrasound)Â100. Pearson correlations and paired t-tests were used to compare the skinfold caliper and sonographic measurements. RESULTS: Hypothesis 1 was supported; the skinfold caliper and sonographic measurements were highly correlated at both study visits. Hypothesis 2 was not supported; between study visits caliper-related tissue compression decreased at measurement sites on the trunk and remained the same at measurement sites on the extremities. Hypothesis 3 was also refuted; the skinfold caliperderived estimate of the amount of subcutaneous adipose tissue gained on the trunk exceeded the corresponding sonographic determination. As anticipated, the skinfold caliper measurements indicated that adipose tissue was stored more rapidly on the trunk than the extremities, but the opposite pattern emerged when the sonographic measurement technique was used. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study challenge the notion that pregnant women store adipose tissue preferentially on the trunk and suggest that pregnancy-related changes in the regional distribution of maternal body fat based on skinfold caliper measurements should be interpreted cautiously.

Maternal abdominal subcutaneous fat thickness as a predictor for adverse pregnancy outcome: a longitudinal cohort study

“…[42][43][44][45] In 2001, the skin-fold caliper findings were shown to inflate the amount of adipose tissue when compared with ultrasound, due to measurement bias. 46 In our research there was no significant difference in abdominal SFT in the normal BMI category but a significant decrease in the subcutaneous fat measure from SFT1 to SFT2 in the overweight and obese categories. This finding is supported by Kinoshita 47 who, in a smaller study using ultrasound, also found a decrease in subcutaneous fat thickness from the first trimester of pregnancy to postpartum.…”

Difficulty in losing weight by behavioral intervention for women with Trp64Arg polymorphism of the β3-adrenergic receptor gene

“…Skin-fold thickness measurements were made with an Eiyoken-type caliper (Meiosha, Tokyo, Japan) calibrated to exert a constant pressure of 10 g/ml on the right side of the body at the triceps. 32,33 BMI was computed as weight (kg) divided by squared height (m 2 ).…”

Automatic Measurement of Human Subcutaneous Fat with Ultrasound

“…Manual ultrasound and skinfold measurements are highly correlated (r > 0.7) in past studies except for the study carried out at the suprailiac site by Stevens-Simon et al [37]. This discrepancy may be due to the difficulty in obtaining skinfold caliper measurements at the suprailiac sites of pregnant women.…”

“…They found that the volume of fat measured by ultrasound was significantly correlated (r = 0.79-0.95) with MRI measurements at the forearm, upper arm, trunk, thigh and lower leg. Other researchers using manual ultrasound methods have found that there are also high correlations between ultrasound and skinfold methods [32,35,36,37,2].…”