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Body composition measurements during infancy
1Wayne State University, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit, USA. wkoo@wayne.edu
Insights
Accurately measuring infant body composition (BC) is challenging due to rapid growth. Anthropometry, total body electrical conductivity (TOBEC), and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) are suitable for infant BC assessment.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Research
- Human Physiology
- Biomedical Engineering
Background:
- Infancy is characterized by rapid postnatal growth and significant body composition (BC) changes.
- Measuring infant BC in vivo presents challenges due to small body mass, rapid changes, and limitations of existing techniques.
- Many methods used for adults are difficult to adapt or lack validation for infant use.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify suitable in vivo techniques for measuring infant body composition.
- To evaluate the applicability and limitations of various BC measurement methods in infants.
- To provide guidance on selecting and applying validated techniques for infant BC assessment.
Main Methods:
- Review and validation of existing in vivo body composition measurement techniques for infants.
- Assessment based on animal validation data, methodological considerations, normative data availability, and accuracy/precision.
- Focus on anthropometric measurements, total body electrical conductivity (TOBEC), and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA).
Main Results:
- Anthropometric measurements are useful for field studies and group comparisons.
- Total body electrical conductivity (TOBEC) and selected dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) are suitable for individual infant BC assessment.
- DXA offers advantages including bone mass measurement and adaptability to existing equipment.
Conclusions:
- Anthropometry, TOBEC, and DXA are the most appropriate techniques for in vivo infant body composition measurement.
- Careful attention to data acquisition, analysis, and understanding technique limitations are crucial for valid infant BC data.
- Further validation and cross-calibration studies are needed to refine the use of these techniques in infants.
Abstract:
Infancy is the period of most rapid postnatal growth and is accompanied by major changes in body composition (BC). There are many challenges to successfully measuring BC of infants in vivo, which include the inherent limitations in the underlying assumptions for each technique. The small body mass and rapid nonuniform changes in body parts, that is, the components of BC during infancy, can strain the technical limits of all methods. Many techniques for in vivo BC measurement used in older people have been applied to infants. However, the vast majority of them either are difficult to adapt for widespread use in infants, or the roles and limitations for using them during infancy are ill-defined because of limited or no critical validation and cross-calibration studies. Based on validation data from animals, well-defined methodological issues in data acquisition and analyses, availability of normative data, and pertinent accuracy and precision of the technique to allow us to determinate clinically relevant changes in BC within a reasonable time interval, three techniques appear to be most suitable for in vivo BC measurement in infants. Anthropometric measurements can be used in field studies or for group comparisons, and total body electrical conductivity (TOBEC) and selected dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) measurements can be used to compare BC in individual infants. DXA has the advantages of being able to measure bone mass and the potential to be adaptable to the widely available existing instruments. However, regardless of the techniques used in measuring BC in infants, meticulous attention to details in data acquisition and data analysis, and a knowledge of the limitations of the particular technique are the prerequisites for generating valid data.