Measurement of Fat Content in the Human Body by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Methods.
Characteristics of adipose tissue in the human body (its condition and volume) reflect the specifics of metabolism in the body, and therefore are of interest for the medical diagnostics. The simplest method to estimate these characteristics is anthropometry, which can reveal the deviations of body proportions (dimension and weight-wise) from empirically defined standards. However, this method does not provide information about biochemical and anatomical features of the adipose tissue in the body. Hence, there is an interest to the methods that allow to get this information non-invasively.
These include approaches based on the phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), namely high resolution NMR spectroscopy and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Local NMR spectroscopy performed in vivo provides information on the chemical structure of the tissues. MRI gives images of tissue slices, on which one can select and calculate the volume of tissue with physical characteristics (chemical shift, relaxation, and others) most close to the tissue of interest.
The main problem of the MRI is a relatively long scan time—several minutes for one part of the body. Moreover, for each part, 2 or more scans with different parameters should be performed to identify the relaxation characteristics of the studied tissues, which further increase the total time of the study. Obtained results demonstrate the potential of spectroscopy method for fast evaluation of fat percentage in human body. This method is simple to implement, which includes both acquisition of spectra and data processing.
Obes Res Open J. 2016; 4(1): 19-23. doi: 10.17140/OROJ-4-129