Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis

Bioelectrical Impedance
Analysis
August 15th, 2016
MASc Leon Max Vargas (UBC / Schneider Electric)
QUESTIONS?? STOP AND ASK!!! DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE END

Mountain / Electricity analogy
Water
Dam
Tube
River
Water flow Current (I)
Altitude difference Tube Resistance (R)

What happens if we remove the Tube?
Altitude V1
No Tube No Water Flow
R Infinite No I
Altitude difference But Altitude still exists!
Voltage
U
(U = V1-V2)
Altitude V2
And if there is NO Altitude difference?
Altitude V1 = Altitude V2
R
U = V1 V2 = 0
No Altitude difference No Water Flow

(even if the tube exists)
U = R.I I
U R
Altitude V1 Water flow Current (I)
Altitude difference Tube Resistance (R) in DC

Voltage IMPEDANCE (Z) in AC
(U = V1-V2)
Altitude V2
DC & AC Circuits
Voltage Voltage
U U T
Amplitude
time time
DC (Direct Current) AC (Alternating Current)

Frequency = 0 Amplitude: 0 to peak value
Example: all batteries (car, mobile) Frequency : Inverse of period (T)
Frequency in Hertz (Hz) = Cycles per second
AC Circuits - Definitions
Period : Duration of one cycle
T in a repeating event
Reciprocal
1 Voltage
T= Period
f U
f time
Frequency : Number of
occurrences AC (Alternating Current)
of a repeating event
per unit time
Impedance
Electrical impedance is the measure of the opposition that a
circuit presents to a current when a voltage is applied
The human body can be represented by an electrical circuit
Most body composition analyzers apply a controlled constant current

and measure the voltage, in order to calculate the impedance:
Impedance between two points = Voltage difference / Applied Current
Z=V/I
BIA measuremtn evolution:

http://www.bodyanalyse.no/bia-history.htm
How much current passes through body
during a BIA study?
Some hundreds of MicroAmperes (less than 1 miliampere)
Current is measured in AMPERES (A) SAFE!
IMPEDANCE (also resistance and rectance) is measured in ohms ()
Context (source NFPA):

Minimum current you can feel: 0.7-1.0 miliamperes
Painful shock: 6-9 miliamperes
Can not let-go current: 10 miliamperes
Current that can KILL you: 100-200 miliamps through the heart (fibrillation), 500
miliamps (heart failure)
Cell burn: 1.5 Ampere
Current through an incandescent lamp: 1 Ampere
Current thruough a minisplit: 10 to 20 Amperes
Human Body BIA (8 electrodes)
E1 to E8 are electrodes
Human Body Impedance Circuit
Ra, Rb, Rc, Rd are very small body parts compared to R1, R2,
R3, R4 or R5. Not significant for BIA
Ra, Rb, Rc, Rd change a lot with feet or hand size, skin
wetness or force to grip terminals
Ra, Rb, Rc, Rd not used for BIA. The human body circuit is R1,
R2, R3, R4, R5 (each leg, each arm, trunk)
Every extremity needs two electrodes (one to inject current,

other to measure the voltaje). It is posible to use the same
electrode for current and voltage, but it is much less accurate
(EXPERIMENT) (calculation beyond scope of this course)
In-Body uses 8 electrodes (both legs and both arms)
Tanita (the model to be used in this course) uses 4 bottom

electrodes only (no direct measurement of trunk impedance)
Source: US Patent (Google Patents) 5720296

Human Body Impedance Circuit
In-Body schematic (8 electrodes)
Equipment automatically switches between

different pairs of electrodes (voltaje measuremnt
and current input) and calculates body
impedances for the body segments at one or two
frequencies near 50 kHz (In-Body uses 20 kHz to
100 kHz)
Electric current finds different opposition

(impedance) depending the frequency. This
helps to get more accurate composition
calculations
In a four electrode equipment, only one

impedance is calculated (quicker, less accurate
and more dependant on correlations)
Age, height, gender are user inputs

Weight is measured by a scale within the
equipment
How Does Impedance relates to Body Composition?
BIA method is a technology measuring the volume of a conductor through its

length and impedance . Hoffer applied this method to the human body to calculate body water through measured
impedance. In 1969 Hoffer's study reported a high correlation between body water and height^2/impedance,
and to this day it has been the basic impedance index for the analysis of body composition.
How Does Impedance relates to Body Composition?
Segmental Body Water = Constant * (Total Body Height) ^2 / Segment Impedance = Ci * H^2 / Zi
Total Body Water (TBW) = Sum of Segments Water
TBW = C1 * H^2 / Zarms + C2 * H^2 / Zlegs + C3 * H^2 / Z trunk + C4 * gender + C5 * age + C6

C1 to C6 are correlation coefficients obtained by experimental research
Example http://nutrition.uvm.edu/bodycomp/bia/bia-toc.html
Body has water, fat and protein+minerals

FAT FREE MASS = Total Body Water / 0.73 = TBW / 0.73
Body Fat = Total Body Mass Fat Free Mass
% Body Fat = (Body fat / Total Body mass) * 100

Useful links and sources
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/US5720296.pdf
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/US5415176.pdf
http://nutrition.uvm.edu/bodycomp/bia/bia-toc.html
http://www.bodyanalyse.no/bia-history.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_impedance

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Bioelectrical Impedance

MASc Leon Max Vargas (UBC / Schneider Electric)

QUESTIONS?? STOP AND ASK!!! DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE END

Water flow Current (I)

Altitude difference Tube Resistance (R)

No Altitude difference No Water Flow

Altitude V1 Water flow Current (I)

Altitude difference Tube Resistance (R) in DC

DC (Direct Current) AC (Alternating Current)

The human body can be represented by an electrical circuit

Most body composition analyzers apply a controlled constant current

BIA measuremtn evolution:

Context (source NFPA):

Every extremity needs two electrodes (one to inject current,

In-Body uses 8 electrodes (both legs and both arms)

Tanita (the model to be used in this course) uses 4 bottom

Source: US Patent (Google Patents) 5720296

Equipment automatically switches between

Electric current finds different opposition

In a four electrode equipment, only one

Age, height, gender are user inputs

BIA method is a technology measuring the volume of a conductor through its

Total Body Water (TBW) = Sum of Segments Water

TBW = C1 * H^2 / Zarms + C2 * H^2 / Zlegs + C3 * H^2 / Z trunk + C4 * gender + C5 * age + C6

Body has water, fat and protein+minerals

Body Fat = Total Body Mass Fat Free Mass

% Body Fat = (Body fat / Total Body mass) * 100

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