Validation of the New HAG-B19 Scale for Measuring Lean and Fat Body Masses by Comparison With Routinely Used Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis and Dual X-Ray Absorptiometry in Western Healthy Adults: The Geneva HAG-BIA Study

This is an observational, prospective, cross-sectional study to evaluate the accuracy and precision of the new HAG-B19 in healthy Western adults. A stratified sampling method is used to recruit a heterogeneous sample of 160 subjects, covering a wide range of ages and body compositions according to gender specific BMI distributions in the population. Volunteers who signed the informed consent form are included in the study. A financial compensation of 50.- CHF is given to each participant (100.- to the 16 participants subjected to the DEXA measurements).

The body composition of each subject (FM, LBM and FM%) is assessed with sequential measurements using 3 HAG-B19 and 3 Nutriguard-M® devices (Data Input, Germany). FM% values measured by HAG-B19 are compared to values by Nutriguard-M® to assess the accuracy and precision of HAG-B19 (main objective). Intra- and inter-device variability are obtained by comparing the 3 repeated measurements and the 3 HAG-B19 devices (secondary objective). In a subgroup of 16 individuals, the FM% values measured by HAG-B19 are compared to DEXA measurements (secondary objective). Pearson correlations and Bland-Altman graphs are performed to assess the agreement of the measurements between the devices and paired t-tests are used to determine if there is a bias between the devices. The significance of the statistical analysis is fixed at p <0.05.