InBody’s mission centers on providing advanced body composition analysis that goes beyond traditional methods like BMI, delivering a detailed breakdown of your health. Our cutting-edge BIA technology, honed over years of innovation, offers deeper, more accurate insights into body composition. Discover what sets InBody apart. With precise, actionable data, InBody empowers individuals to make informed decisions about their health and wellness journey.
Traditional BIA technology measures the human body as a single-cylinder using one frequency, which increases the likelihood of inaccurate results. This approach relies on assumptions based on age, gender, or general body types, which can lead to less reliable data, especially for those with unique body compositions.
In contrast, InBody’s advanced technology measures each body segment individually, delivering highly personalized and precise results. By avoiding general estimations, InBody provides a clearer, more accurate picture of your health.
InBody’s medical-grade body composition analyzers are powered by four pillars of technology, including Direct Segmental Measurement and Multi-Frequency Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (DSM-MFBIA), extensively validated to gold-standard methods for superior accuracy.
InBody devices utilize a method called Bio-electrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) to accurately measure body composition. This technology divides your weight into different components, such as lean body mass, fat mass, and total body water. By sending low and high-frequency electrical currents through the body, BIA measures impedance, which allows InBody devices to determine total body water (TBW) and, from there, calculate fat-free mass and body fat.
This breakdown of your body’s composition offers a more precise view of your overall health and nutrition compared to traditional metrics like BMI, giving you actionable insights to improve your wellness.
InBody’s medical-grade body composition analyzers use four key technologies to provide highly accurate and precise BIA results, closely aligned with gold-standard methods.
This comparison highlights the critical technological differences between InBody and other BIA devices. By exploring features such as multi-frequency analysis, the 8-point tactile electrode system, and direct segmental measurements, the section illustrates how InBody provides more precise, accurate, and individualized body composition data without relying on generalized assumptions or empirical estimations.
Devices without a proper electrode system often provide unreliable results due to variations in how users hold the electrodes.
InBody’s design ensures that current flows properly from the palm to the thumb, providing a repeatable and highly accurate measurement process every time.
Many BIA devices use a single frequency of 50 kHz to measure impedance, which doesn’t pass through the body’s cells accurately. This limits their ability to distinguish between extracellular and intracellular water, leading to inaccurate results in body composition.
InBody uses both low and high frequencies to penetrate the body’s cells and differentiate between extracellular, intracellular, and total body water. This multi-frequency technology ensures precise measurement of fluid balance, body composition, and health risks.
Traditional BIA devices treat the human body as one cylinder, ignoring the unique impedance of each segment, especially the torso, leading to major errors in body composition analysis.
InBody’s DSM-MFBIA divides the body into five segments: left arm, right arm, torso, left leg, and right leg. It analyzes each separately to provide precise measurements for each body part.
Using empirical equations to estimate body composition makes the results less tailored to the individual.
InBody delivers personalized feedback, using precise measurements that reflect your own body’s composition, without relying on external assumptions or averages.
In 1969, Hoffer et al. conducted a series of experiments to prove that total body water and bioelectrical impedance were highly correlated, suggesting that impedance measurements could be used for determining total body water.
In 1979, RJL Systems made the first commercialized impedance meter that helped popularize the BIA method. The device measured impedance using a 50kHz current applied to the right half of the subject’s body via electrodes attached to the back of the right hand and on top of the right foot.
Previous body composition methods like calipers or underwater weighing were uncomfortable, required skilled technicians to install or operate, and could not test a wide variety of populations. Alternatively, BIA was easy, fast, less expensive, and non-invasive, making it popular with many researchers, nutritionists, and medical experts.
In the 1980s, studies proved BIA had high correlations with gold standard methods, such as underwater weighing and DEXA; however, some technical limitations began to surface.
Two limitations of BIA were its assumption of the human body as a single-cylinder and its use of a single frequency (50 kHz). This method worked for users with standard body types, but it was inaccurate for populations outside of this mold, such as fit elderly adults.
To improve accuracy, researchers derived various population-specific equations based on empirical data like age, sex, and body type for determining body composition.
While empirical estimations may accurately estimate a healthy individual’s body composition, they deliver inaccurate results and oversimplify health risks in population outliers like obese young individuals.
In the late 80s, Japanese manufacturers released several BIA devices for personal use, which gradually became more popular than professional medical models due to technological constraints mentioned earlier.
Some of these BIA devices were scales that measured the impedance between the user’s feet, while other models were handheld and measured the impedance between the user’s hands.
Both types of models potentially produced inaccurate results because they measured the arms or legs directly and estimated everything else.
In 1992, Dr. Robert Kushner proposed that the technical limitations of BIA could be improved by measuring the human body as five separate cylinders instead of one. Each cylinder has a different length and cross-sectional area resulting in varying impedance values.
With the single-cylinder model, the thinness and smaller cross-sectional area of the limbs reduce their impact on whole-body impedance. However, since the torso makes up 50% of fat-free mass, it is crucial to measure the torso separately for accurate results.
Kushner also believed it was necessary to measure the body cylinders at different frequencies to distinguish intracellular, extracellular, and total body water. This distinction would allow a better understanding of fluid distribution, providing an accurate measure of the hydrated state of fat-free mass.
In 1996, Dr. Kichul Cha developed the world’s first 8-point tactile electrode system with direct segmental analysis to measure impedance in the five body cylinders using multiple frequencies (DSM-MFBIA technology).
Many BIA products provide segmental muscle and fat mass measures but not impedance, particularly in the torso.
The InBody device measured impedance in the limbs and torso separately, yielding highly accurate results without using empirical data based on age, sex, ethnicity, athleticism, and body shape. This innovative DSM-MFBIA technology makes the InBody a highly accurate and precise tool ideal for medical, fitness, and clinical applications.
