Ultrasound measurements - Doubly indirect methods in Body composition techniques

Ultrasound measurements

Ultrasound measurements can also be used to study several aspects of body composition. With ultrasound measurements, the thickness of the subcutaneous fat layer can be determined and total body fat can be calculated. A good reflection signal depends heavily on the absence of connective tissue between adipose tissue and muscle. The main difficulty in ultrasound measurements is the exact application of the ultra-sound transducer perpendicular to the tissue without any pressure. In the literature, several studies report a good correlation between skinfold thicknesses mea-sured by calipers and those measured by ultrasound. The correlation of skinfolds with total body fat was higher than when using ultrasound, suggesting that skinfold thickness measurements have a better pre-dictive value.

Internal abdominal body fat can also be assessed with ultrasound. Studies have shown that ultrasound measurements provide a better method than anthro-pometry to assess internal abdominal fat depots.