Bioimpedance, or once again a little bit about how to lose weight properly

Tells Olga Yatsishina,
endocrinologist, PhD

The human body consists of water, protein, minerals and adipose tissue, which together make up the body weight. A balanced amount of the main components of our body is an important condition for health, well-being and maintaining working capacity.

Thanks to the development of modern technologies, it is possible to find out the exact composition of the human body without resorting to complex analyzes, blood sampling, etc., but only using a special device – a bioimpedance meter, which scans the entire body in 3-4 minutes, and after computer processing, the doctor receives detailed data on its composition. This study is comfortable, painless and practically harmless.

What does bioimpedance show, and why is it needed?

The following indicators can be determined using this method.

• Individual ideal weight value.

• The amount of fat is a more accurate indicator compared to the body mass index. It is possible that there are no external signs of obesity, the body mass index (the ratio of body weight and height) is within normal values, but there is a pronounced excess of adipose tissue and a sharp deficiency of other components in the body, for example, muscle mass.

The normal fat content for men is 15-18%, for women – 23-28%. An excessive amount of adipose tissue can be caused by a malfunction of the endocrine system, an increase in the amount of fats in food, and insufficient physical activity. The indicator of the amount of adipose tissue, which is below the norm, is also dangerous, especially for women, because adipose tissue is involved in the synthesis of sex hormones.

• The amount of visceral (internal) fat is the fat mass concentrated mainly in the abdominal cavity.

It has been established that the risk of developing diseases associated with overweight (diabetes mellitus, hyperandrogenism and infertility in women, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, hypertension, cholecystitis and gallstone disease, metabolic and dystrophic polyarthritis, oncological diseases), it is associated with internal, not subcutaneous fat.

• The amount of active cell mass is a part of the lean body mass, which includes muscles, internal organs, brain and nerve cells.

Active cell mass is a necessary indicator for assessing basic metabolism. We can say that active cell mass plays the role of a kind of "motor" - the greater its amount, the higher the level of the body's basic metabolism, the more adipose tissue will be "burned" in the process of weight loss. It is very important that weight loss occurs precisely due to adipose tissue, and the amount of active cell mass remains unchanged. A low index of active cell mass is accompanied by a low level of metabolic processes and may indicate an insufficient or unbalanced diet.

• The amount of extracellular (blood, lymph) and intracellular fluid in the body in a bound state (edema).

• Basic metabolism;(kcal) — the energy needs of the body in a state of complete rest, ensuring the functions of all organs and systems, maintaining normal body temperature. It is used to calculate the daily ration.

The caloric content of the diet should not be lower than this individual figure. Stricter restrictions in the diet will lead to a slowdown in metabolism, the weight loss process will either slow down, despite the fact that you will eat very little, or it will decrease, but not due to fat, but due to active cell mass.

• The muscle balance of the whole body is useful for optimizing the training regime.

Based on the results of bioimpedance testing, an endocrinologist will determine if you have a deviation of all these indicators from the norm. In the future, this will allow you to track changes during overweight therapy, when correcting your eating style, as well as your physical activity.

Bioimpedance monitoring is not recommended for pregnant women or people with a pacemaker.

Olga Yatsishina