Withings Introduces Body Pro 2, an Rx Device for Early Detection of DPN*
3 min read
Smart Scales have traditionally been used by consumers to track their personal wellness metrics. However, Withings saw an opportunity to use highly sophisticated technologies in an at-home setting that provide critical data for providers to make more timely and informed care decisions. Body Pro 2 is that type of technology – a scale that adds both nuance and robustness to at-home health management and has the potential to improve the early detection of diabetic peripheral neuropathies (DPN).
Remote patient monitoring provides immediate, daily measurements to track and manage patient care for at-risk patients. As the creator of the original home smart scale, Withings has 15 years of experience in this field and hundreds of peer-reviewed studies of its products and measurements. In 2022 Withings acquired Sudoscan®, the FDA-cleared medical device for assessing DPN. We have now incorporated the Sudoscan® technology – which is already used by thousands of clinicians around the world – in our Body Pro 2 device.
Rather than hoping patients come for a regular foot exam, doctors and other health professionals can now monitor signs of diabetic peripheral neuropathy with daily readings to detect the earliest changes in small fiber neuropathy, at a stage when interventions can have the most profound effect. With 70% of patients with diabetes suffering from DPN at some point, regular assessment is critical. Unfortunately, annual comprehensive foot exams, as recommended by the ADA, have patient compliance issues and the conventional assessment techniques used by primary care practitioners (PCPs) often miss asymptomatic patients.
Body Pro 2 assesses small fiber nerves by emitting low voltage pulses to stimulate the sweat glands in the foot and measures reactivity to the impulse, providing a quantitative Electrochemical Skin Conductance (ESC) score. An equivalence study compared the ESC measurements of Withings’ at-home device with those of the Sudoscan device which has been used in specialty clinics and hospital settings for more than 10 years (1). The multi-center, cross-sectional study was carried out in four French university hospitals with 147 patients. Results demonstrated an almost perfect agreement in terms of sensitivity, specificity, and repeatability.
Within 60 seconds of stepping on the scale, patients and care teams receive feedback indicating whether small fiber neuropathy may be present. Care teams can then determine, based on the potential extent of the neuropathy, whether ongoing monitoring or immediate referral to a specialist is needed. The data are displayed on the screen and seamlessly transmitted to the care team by cellular, wireless, or bluetooth technology. This connectivity allows the physician to communicate with the patient and provide instructions for care.
Beyond the usual weight and BMI biomarkers, the Body Pro 2 is the first at-home cellular scale to measure body composition using multifrequency Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA). The body composition readings include fat mass, visceral fat, muscle mass, bone mass, and water percentage. A built-in algorithm, ProgramMemberID, assures that the data are coming from the patient – not a family member – and an engagement score helps a provider adjust advice to the patient accordingly.
Eric Carreel, Founder and President of Withings, commented, “Body Pro 2 allows for early detection of a largely underdiagnosed condition and therefore a better management of the diabetic foot. I also believe that providing access to longitudinal ESC data has the potential to help the industry rethink how we should care for patients with diabetes.”
Riveline JP, Mallone R, Tiercelin C, Yaker F, Alexandre-Heymann L, Khelifaoui L, Travert F, Fertichon C, Julla JB, Vidal-Trecan T, Potier L, Gautier JF, Larger E, Lefaucheur JP. Validation of the Body Scan®, a new Device to detect small fiber neuropathy by assessment of the sudomotor function: agreement with the Sudoscan®. Front Neurol. 2023 Oct 31;14:1256984. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2023.1256984. PMID: 38020587; PMCID: PMC10644320
Amit Goel et al., « Comparison of Electrochemical Skin Conductance and Vibration Perception Threshold Measurement in the Detection of Early Diabetic Neuropathy », PLOS ONE 12, no 9 (7 septembre 2017): e0183973, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0183973
Angelica Carbajal-Ramírez et al., « Early Identification of Peripheral Neuropathy Based on Sudomotor Dysfunction in Mexican Patients with Type 2 Diabetes », BMC Neurology 19, no 1 (31 mai 2019): 109, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12883-019-1332-4
Selvarajah D, Cash T, Davies J, Sankar A, Rao G, Grieg M, Pallai S, Gandhi R, Wilkinson ID, Tesfaye S. SUDOSCAN: A Simple, Rapid, and Objective Method with Potential for Screening for Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy. PLoS One. 2015 Oct 12;10(10):e0138224
When it comes to weight, Body Mass Index (BMI) alone may not tell the whole story. In fact, critical scientific reviews note that it is increasingly clear that BMI is a poor indicator of body fat percentage and also does not account for the mass of fat stored in different parts of the body (1). BMI’s limitations are evident — considered on its own, it oversimplifies health assessments, neglecting crucial factors like muscle mass, bone density, and body composition. To get a clearer and more accurate view of the body, estimating body composition is key. Body composition refers to the proportion of lean mass and fat mass within the body. Lean mass can be subdivided into muscle mass, water percentage and bone mass (2).
Body Pro 2 measures body composition: fat mass, muscle mass, water percentage and bone mass. By measuring it, Withings Body Pro 2 can help care teams get a better picture of their patients overall health.
To read full scientific study, please enter your contact information below.
test
Why does it matter?
Obesity and body fat distribution are established risk factors of chronic disease.3 Fat plays an essential role in good health — it allows the body to store energy to support metabolism. However, excessive body fat mass has been linked to certain health risks, including heart disease, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer (4). Accumulating excess storage fat, especially around the abdomen, can lead to a higher risk of disease (5,6). Because body composition is constantly changing, it is important to use the same measurement method over time.
What is a healthy body fat level?
Unlike weight, body composition shouldn’t be interpreted as a standalone figure, because it must be considered in context with gender, age and metabolism.
By definition, a healthy body composition includes a low proportion of body fat, as well as a higher proportion of non-fat mass. First of all, a healthy body fat level will be different for men and women. So, body fat percentage results are usually sorted by age and sex according to the following categories:
Body fat ranges for females
Female bodies need more fat to maintain a good hormonal balance, as well as healthy and regular menstrual cycles. Females tend to have 6-11% more body fat than males.
Body fat ranges for males
For males aged 20 to 39, having a body fat percentage that is above 25% is considered obese. This means that no more than a quarter of the total body weight should consist of fat.
How is body composition usually measured?
There are many ways to determine body fat, muscle mass, water percentage and bone mass. As a patient ages and their lean muscle progressively decreases, it is important to keep body composition in mind.
Different methods exist to measure the body composition:
Method 1 - Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA)
Bioelectrical impedance analysis is a simple and non-invasive way to measure body fat. With this technique, an undetectable current is sent through the body and by measuring the voltage, we can compute the resistance and then calculate the impedance. The algorithm integrates the impedance measurement with other factors such as age, weight, height, and gender to evaluate an individual’s body composition, including water percentage, fat mass, and muscle mass.
Method 2 - Skinfold calipers
By measuring the thickness of a skin fold at key locations on the body, it is possible to estimate the total amount of fat and then deduce the body fat percentage using corresponding charts.
Method 3 - Body circumference measurement
In this method, a tape measurement is placed around the waist, neck, and hips. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), body circumference can serve as a preliminary screening tool but should not be solely relied upon for assessing an individual’s body fat level or overall health. It is advisable for a qualified healthcare professional to conduct comprehensive health assessments to accurately evaluate an individual’s health status and potential risks (7).
DEXA scans are performed in clinical environments and use spectral imaging (X-ray) to measure bone mineral density. DEXA provides detailed information about tissue composition, and can distinguish lean tissue mass from fat tissue mass with proven accuracy (8).
A Dual X-ray Absorptiometry (DEXA) scan, often considered as the gold standard for measuring fat mass, has some disadvantages when compared to BIA. DEXA can only be performed in a supervised clinical setting and is too costly, time-consuming, and inconvenient for efficient daily monitoring of body fat levels. While BIA will not yield as accurate a result as DEXA in terms of exact value, it will accurately display variations in body fat when comparing two measurements taken under similar conditions (9). This technique can be very useful when measuring changes in body fat, and it can help provide a more complete picture of overall health.
Body Pro 2 is equipped with multifrequency bioelectrical impedance analysis to provide accurate and reproducible body composition measurements.
How does Body Pro 2 measure a patient’s body composition?
Use of BIA
Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), or bio-impedance, is the measurement of the resistance of biological tissues to the flow of a low-voltage current. The human body is composed of different types of tissues, which have different levels of electrical conductivity. Currents will pass mainly through the most conductive tissues, such as water or muscle.
Withings Body Pro 2 has four electrodes that are attached to the surface of the glass plate. 6.25 kHz and a 50 kHz high-frequency sinusoidal voltages are sent between two electrodes, located near the tops of the feet. A safe, undetectable current of less than 300 μArms is sent through the lower half of the body (Fig. 3) and will not be felt by the user. By measuring the voltage drop between the other two electrodes, located near the heels of the feet, the scale can measure the impedance, which can then be used to calculate an estimate of non-fat body mass. Then, by subtracting the difference with body weight, fat mass is calculated as well. Other independent regressions are used to calculate total body water and bone mass. Finally, muscle mass is deduced by subtracting body fat and bone mass from total weight.
By measuring the voltage drop between the electrodes, BIA determines the resistance level of these tissues to the excitation current. The scale then displays the body composition measurements, including fat mass, water percentage, muscle mass, and bone mass, based on scientifically validated equations. The measurements are calculated using several parameters such as lower body impedance, weight, height, age, gender, and athletic profile.
BIA provides a reliable estimate of total body water, which is a useful technique to assess body composition in both healthy individuals and people affected by a chronic condition (10).
Scientific validation of Body Pro 2
An accurate measurement of body composition.
An internal study was conducted on a group of 61 patients composed of 52% male and 48% female, non athletes, caucasian adults. The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of Withings Body Pro 2 and the Tanita MC780. The MC780 scale uses segmental measurements. It uses 3 frequencies to measure body composition and is a medical device of class IIa, approved by the FDA. Participants performed 3 measurements on each device. The results of this study are shown below.
The results demonstrate a high degree of agreement between the Body Pro 2 and Tanita scales, underscoring the superior quality of our impedance measurements and numerical models.
Even though Withings Body Pro 2 measures only impedance in the lower half of the body, as opposed to all segments, the correlation with the Tanita MC780 was found to be very strong, with minimal errors. This conclusion is evident in the graph, which illustrates a strong correlation between the two devices. Furthermore, the mean absolute error on fat percentage was found to be below 2.5% for both sexes, indicating a high level of accuracy. The R2 coefficient, a statistical measure indicating the extent to which an independent variable explains the variance in a dependent variable, was found to be 0.9. This high R2 value also signifies a strong correlation, further validating the reliability and accuracy of the Withings Body Pro 2 scale.
In conclusion, Withings Body Pro 2 has demonstrated excellent performance and accuracy in this study, reinforcing its position as a reliable tool for health measurements.
A repeatable measurement of body composition
Monitoring body composition over time is crucial. Trends in body composition can provide valuable insights into a patient’s health status, often more so than individual measurements. For instance, during a weight loss journey a person may experience a plateau and lose their motivation if they feel that their efforts are not working anymore. However, by tracking their body composition they will be able to understand the shift in their fat mass and muscle mass as illustrated below. Therefore, the ability to accurately and consistently measure body composition over time is of utmost importance.
In this context, Withings has conducted rigorous internal tests on Body Pro 2, designed to provide highly accurate and repeatable measurements. The tests involved a production jig that mimics the behavior of human limbs, using a combination of resistors and capacitors in parallel. The jig made contact with the scale through conductive pads on the top of the glass, under a weight of 70 kg.
The results of 30 consecutive measurements with 6.25 kHz and 50 kHz frequencies were highly consistent, demonstrating the superior repeatability of Withings Body Pro 2. The mean relative error was 0.13% with a standard deviation of 1.33 ohm at 6.25 kHz, and an even lower mean relative error of 0.07% with a standard deviation of 0.45 ohm at 50 kHz. These results underscore the reliability of Withings Body Pro 2 in providing consistent body composition measurements over time, thereby facilitating the tracking of health trends with high precision and confidence. This makes it an invaluable tool for monitoring patients.
Body Pro 2 utilizes multifrequency BIA technology for the evaluation of patient body composition to offer accurate and repeatable measurements to care teams. This enables healthcare providers to receive daily measurements from their patients, facilitating the long-term tracking of their progress and thus allowing for in-depth follow up with personalized advice.
1 Nuttall F. Q. (2015). Body Mass Index: Obesity, BMI, and Health: A Critical Review. Nutrition today, 50(3), 117–128. https://doi.org/10.1097/NT.0000000000000092.
2 Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Military Nutrition Research, Marriott, B. M., & Grumstrup-Scott, J. (1990). «Body Composition and Physical Performance: Applications For the Military Services.» In Body Composition and Physical Performance: Applications For the Military Services. National Academies Press (US). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK235943.
3 Baumgartner, R. N., Heymsfield, S. B., & Roche, A. F. (1995). «Human Body Composition and the Epidemiology of Chronic Disease.» Obesity Research, 3(1), 73-95.
4 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. «About Obesity.» September 26th, 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/about-obesity/index.html
5 Shah, R. V., et al. (2014, December). Visceral Adiposity and the Risk of Metabolic Syndrome across Body Mass Index: The MESA Study. JACC. Cardiovascular Imaging, 7(12), 1221-1235.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcmg.2014.07.017
6 Després, J.-P. (2012, September 4th). Body Fat Distribution and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: An Update. Circulation, 126(10), 1301-1313. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.111.067264
7 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023, June 9th). «Assessing Your Weight.» https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/index.html.
8 Wang, Z., et al. (2010, May 7th). Estimation of Percentage Body Fat by Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry: Evaluation by In Vivo Human Elemental Composition. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 55(9), 2619-2635. https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9155/55/9/013
9 Martinoli, R., et al. (2003, November 1st). Total Body Water Estimation Using Bioelectrical Impedance: A Meta-Analysis of the Data Available in the Literature. Acta Diabetologica, 40(Suppl 1), S203-S206. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00592-003-0066-2
10 National Institutes of Health. (1996). «NIH Consensus Statement. Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis in Body Composition Measurement. National Institutes of Health Technology Assessment Conference Statement. December 12-14th, 1994.» Nutrition, 12(11-12), 749-762.
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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over half (51.8%) of U.S. adults have at least one diagnosed chronic condition, including arthritis, asthma, diabetes, and hypertension. Connected health devices have an important role to play in helping patients with chronic illnesses improve their quality of life. In this article, we explore how these devices can help physicians and patients manage their chronic conditions and make the lifestyle changes needed to realize their wellness goals. We’ll wrap up with three real-life use cases that highlight how connected health devices are being used to empower patients and improve health outcomes.
Patient stepping on a Withings connected scale
Benefits of Connected Health Devices for Managing Chronic Illness
The nature of chronic conditions is that they can develop gradually over time. This is problematic because the deterioration can go undetected. Connected health devices can help patients and their healthcare providers more quickly identify the progress of diseases and better manage them for greater wellness. Here are five important benefits of using connected health devices.
Earlier detection of deteriorating health
Connected devices can help to increase the frequency of health checks in between in-office doctor visits, providing a more accurate view of patient health for providers to base treatment. Additionally, connected health devices act as an early warning system, alerting patients and approved medical providers when a patient’s health metrics aren’t ideal. They can also flag an unexpected sudden deterioration, limiting the risk of further complications. With vital health metrics monitored at frequent intervals, providers can intervene more quickly to prevent additional health complications, such as poorly-managed diabetes triggering hypertension.
Increase patient-provider bond
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) programs can create a stronger connection between patients and providers as patients have confidence that their conditions are being closely monitored. During office visits, providers have the opportunity to use the patient’s data as part of the shared decision-making process, allowing patients and providers to work together to create a care plan or fine-tune an existing one. Participation in an RPM program also provides physicians with an additional tool to track patient adherence to treatment plans.
Track progress toward health goals
Connected health devices empower patients to play a more active part in achieving their own wellness goals. When readings are taken daily or several times per week, patients can more easily track their progress. More frequent health measures help patients see how lifestyle choices like exercise and diet directly impact their health.
Share patient health data across a patient’s entire care team
With patient consent, health data from connected devices can be accessed by the patient’s entire care team. Especially for patients with complex health profiles, data from connected devices can foster greater collaboration between providers.
Expand provider capacity
Today, many healthcare systems are stretched thin. Remote patient monitoring empowers healthcare providers to be more proactive in managing patient care. Patients with well-managed chronic conditions are less likely to require more costly and resource-intensive acute care.
Use Cases for Connected Health Devices
The opportunities for remote patient monitoring and connected health devices are nearly endless, ensuring that conditions are detected early before complications can develop. This is even more important as all these conditions are linked with one another. To demonstrate how beneficial this technology can be, here are three ways RPM programs are being used successfully to improve health outcomes.
Diabetes prevention and obesity
Patients use a cellular- or Wifi-enabled digital scale to take frequent body weight measures, which can be automatically transmitted to the healthcare provider. Providers can use this data to spot trends, track adherence to a treatment plan, and evaluate the effectiveness of a weight management program. Frequent body weight measurements also help patients see how lifestyle choices directly impact their health.
Hypertension
Patients diagnosed with hypertension use a wireless blood pressure cuff to monitor their blood pressure regularly. This device automatically collects and transmits the reading, often with just the touch of a button. Using an RPM device for managing hypertension allows healthcare providers to track a patient’s blood pressure over time and can alert them to dangerous spikes in blood pressure that may require urgent intervention.
Sleep conditions
Sleep conditions like sleep apnea can be silent and are underdiagnosed. Using a sleep tracking mat helps to provide an objective measure to identify these conditions. Sleep specialists can use an under-mattress sleep mat to track a patient’s sleep patterns remotely, capturing metrics such as interruptions, time in bed before sleep, time to get out of bed in the morning, and other factors that can affect sleep quality. Some sleep mats, such as Withings’, can also detect snoring.
Withings Connected Devices for Managing Chronic Illness
Connected health devices are an important part of managing chronic illness. With over a decade of industry experience, Withings Health Solutions offers medical-grade devices that feature intuitive designs that encourage high user adoption and retention rates, including a sleep tracking mat, blood pressure monitor, and scale. And our physician dashboard offers intuitive, continuous access to patients’ critical health data in near-real time for actionable information to guide care.
Learn more about the Withings Health Solutions portfolio of smart health devices or request a demo.
When it comes to weight, Body Mass Index (BMI) alone may not tell the whole story. In fact, critical scientific reviews note that it is increasingly clear that BMI is a poor indicator of body fat percentage and also does not account for the mass of fat stored in different parts of the body (1). BMI’s limitations are evident — considered on its own, it oversimplifies health assessments, neglecting crucial factors like muscle mass, bone density, and body composition. To get a clearer and more accurate view of the body, estimating body composition is key. Body composition refers to the proportion of lean mass and fat mass within the body. Lean mass can be subdivided into muscle mass, water percentage and bone mass (2).
Body Pro 2 measures body composition: fat mass, muscle mass, water percentage and bone mass. By measuring it, Withings Body Pro 2 can help care teams get a better picture of their patients overall health.
To read full scientific study, please enter your contact information below.
test
Why does it matter?
Obesity and body fat distribution are established risk factors of chronic disease.3 Fat plays an essential role in good health — it allows the body to store energy to support metabolism. However, excessive body fat mass has been linked to certain health risks, including heart disease, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer (4). Accumulating excess storage fat, especially around the abdomen, can lead to a higher risk of disease (5,6). Because body composition is constantly changing, it is important to use the same measurement method over time.
What is a healthy body fat level?
Unlike weight, body composition shouldn’t be interpreted as a standalone figure, because it must be considered in context with gender, age and metabolism.
By definition, a healthy body composition includes a low proportion of body fat, as well as a higher proportion of non-fat mass. First of all, a healthy body fat level will be different for men and women. So, body fat percentage results are usually sorted by age and sex according to the following categories:
Body fat ranges for females
Female bodies need more fat to maintain a good hormonal balance, as well as healthy and regular menstrual cycles. Females tend to have 6-11% more body fat than males.
Body fat ranges for males
For males aged 20 to 39, having a body fat percentage that is above 25% is considered obese. This means that no more than a quarter of the total body weight should consist of fat.
How is body composition usually measured?
There are many ways to determine body fat, muscle mass, water percentage and bone mass. As a patient ages and their lean muscle progressively decreases, it is important to keep body composition in mind.
Different methods exist to measure the body composition:
Method 1 - Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA)
Bioelectrical impedance analysis is a simple and non-invasive way to measure body fat. With this technique, an undetectable current is sent through the body and by measuring the voltage, we can compute the resistance and then calculate the impedance. The algorithm integrates the impedance measurement with other factors such as age, weight, height, and gender to evaluate an individual’s body composition, including water percentage, fat mass, and muscle mass.
Method 2 - Skinfold calipers
By measuring the thickness of a skin fold at key locations on the body, it is possible to estimate the total amount of fat and then deduce the body fat percentage using corresponding charts.
Method 3 - Body circumference measurement
In this method, a tape measurement is placed around the waist, neck, and hips. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), body circumference can serve as a preliminary screening tool but should not be solely relied upon for assessing an individual’s body fat level or overall health. It is advisable for a qualified healthcare professional to conduct comprehensive health assessments to accurately evaluate an individual’s health status and potential risks (7).
DEXA scans are performed in clinical environments and use spectral imaging (X-ray) to measure bone mineral density. DEXA provides detailed information about tissue composition, and can distinguish lean tissue mass from fat tissue mass with proven accuracy (8).
A Dual X-ray Absorptiometry (DEXA) scan, often considered as the gold standard for measuring fat mass, has some disadvantages when compared to BIA. DEXA can only be performed in a supervised clinical setting and is too costly, time-consuming, and inconvenient for efficient daily monitoring of body fat levels. While BIA will not yield as accurate a result as DEXA in terms of exact value, it will accurately display variations in body fat when comparing two measurements taken under similar conditions (9). This technique can be very useful when measuring changes in body fat, and it can help provide a more complete picture of overall health.
Body Pro 2 is equipped with multifrequency bioelectrical impedance analysis to provide accurate and reproducible body composition measurements.
How does Body Pro 2 measure a patient’s body composition?
Use of BIA
Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), or bio-impedance, is the measurement of the resistance of biological tissues to the flow of a low-voltage current. The human body is composed of different types of tissues, which have different levels of electrical conductivity. Currents will pass mainly through the most conductive tissues, such as water or muscle.
Withings Body Pro 2 has four electrodes that are attached to the surface of the glass plate. 6.25 kHz and a 50 kHz high-frequency sinusoidal voltages are sent between two electrodes, located near the tops of the feet. A safe, undetectable current of less than 300 μArms is sent through the lower half of the body (Fig. 3) and will not be felt by the user. By measuring the voltage drop between the other two electrodes, located near the heels of the feet, the scale can measure the impedance, which can then be used to calculate an estimate of non-fat body mass. Then, by subtracting the difference with body weight, fat mass is calculated as well. Other independent regressions are used to calculate total body water and bone mass. Finally, muscle mass is deduced by subtracting body fat and bone mass from total weight.
By measuring the voltage drop between the electrodes, BIA determines the resistance level of these tissues to the excitation current. The scale then displays the body composition measurements, including fat mass, water percentage, muscle mass, and bone mass, based on scientifically validated equations. The measurements are calculated using several parameters such as lower body impedance, weight, height, age, gender, and athletic profile.
BIA provides a reliable estimate of total body water, which is a useful technique to assess body composition in both healthy individuals and people affected by a chronic condition (10).
Scientific validation of Body Pro 2
An accurate measurement of body composition.
An internal study was conducted on a group of 61 patients composed of 52% male and 48% female, non athletes, caucasian adults. The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of Withings Body Pro 2 and the Tanita MC780. The MC780 scale uses segmental measurements. It uses 3 frequencies to measure body composition and is a medical device of class IIa, approved by the FDA. Participants performed 3 measurements on each device. The results of this study are shown below.
The results demonstrate a high degree of agreement between the Body Pro 2 and Tanita scales, underscoring the superior quality of our impedance measurements and numerical models.
Even though Withings Body Pro 2 measures only impedance in the lower half of the body, as opposed to all segments, the correlation with the Tanita MC780 was found to be very strong, with minimal errors. This conclusion is evident in the graph, which illustrates a strong correlation between the two devices. Furthermore, the mean absolute error on fat percentage was found to be below 2.5% for both sexes, indicating a high level of accuracy. The R2 coefficient, a statistical measure indicating the extent to which an independent variable explains the variance in a dependent variable, was found to be 0.9. This high R2 value also signifies a strong correlation, further validating the reliability and accuracy of the Withings Body Pro 2 scale.
In conclusion, Withings Body Pro 2 has demonstrated excellent performance and accuracy in this study, reinforcing its position as a reliable tool for health measurements.
A repeatable measurement of body composition
Monitoring body composition over time is crucial. Trends in body composition can provide valuable insights into a patient’s health status, often more so than individual measurements. For instance, during a weight loss journey a person may experience a plateau and lose their motivation if they feel that their efforts are not working anymore. However, by tracking their body composition they will be able to understand the shift in their fat mass and muscle mass as illustrated below. Therefore, the ability to accurately and consistently measure body composition over time is of utmost importance.
In this context, Withings has conducted rigorous internal tests on Body Pro 2, designed to provide highly accurate and repeatable measurements. The tests involved a production jig that mimics the behavior of human limbs, using a combination of resistors and capacitors in parallel. The jig made contact with the scale through conductive pads on the top of the glass, under a weight of 70 kg.
The results of 30 consecutive measurements with 6.25 kHz and 50 kHz frequencies were highly consistent, demonstrating the superior repeatability of Withings Body Pro 2. The mean relative error was 0.13% with a standard deviation of 1.33 ohm at 6.25 kHz, and an even lower mean relative error of 0.07% with a standard deviation of 0.45 ohm at 50 kHz. These results underscore the reliability of Withings Body Pro 2 in providing consistent body composition measurements over time, thereby facilitating the tracking of health trends with high precision and confidence. This makes it an invaluable tool for monitoring patients.
Body Pro 2 utilizes multifrequency BIA technology for the evaluation of patient body composition to offer accurate and repeatable measurements to care teams. This enables healthcare providers to receive daily measurements from their patients, facilitating the long-term tracking of their progress and thus allowing for in-depth follow up with personalized advice.
1 Nuttall F. Q. (2015). Body Mass Index: Obesity, BMI, and Health: A Critical Review. Nutrition today, 50(3), 117–128. https://doi.org/10.1097/NT.0000000000000092.
2 Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Military Nutrition Research, Marriott, B. M., & Grumstrup-Scott, J. (1990). «Body Composition and Physical Performance: Applications For the Military Services.» In Body Composition and Physical Performance: Applications For the Military Services. National Academies Press (US). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK235943.
3 Baumgartner, R. N., Heymsfield, S. B., & Roche, A. F. (1995). «Human Body Composition and the Epidemiology of Chronic Disease.» Obesity Research, 3(1), 73-95.
4 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. «About Obesity.» September 26th, 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/about-obesity/index.html
5 Shah, R. V., et al. (2014, December). Visceral Adiposity and the Risk of Metabolic Syndrome across Body Mass Index: The MESA Study. JACC. Cardiovascular Imaging, 7(12), 1221-1235.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcmg.2014.07.017
6 Després, J.-P. (2012, September 4th). Body Fat Distribution and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: An Update. Circulation, 126(10), 1301-1313. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.111.067264
7 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023, June 9th). «Assessing Your Weight.» https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/index.html.
8 Wang, Z., et al. (2010, May 7th). Estimation of Percentage Body Fat by Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry: Evaluation by In Vivo Human Elemental Composition. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 55(9), 2619-2635. https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9155/55/9/013
9 Martinoli, R., et al. (2003, November 1st). Total Body Water Estimation Using Bioelectrical Impedance: A Meta-Analysis of the Data Available in the Literature. Acta Diabetologica, 40(Suppl 1), S203-S206. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00592-003-0066-2
10 National Institutes of Health. (1996). «NIH Consensus Statement. Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis in Body Composition Measurement. National Institutes of Health Technology Assessment Conference Statement. December 12-14th, 1994.» Nutrition, 12(11-12), 749-762.
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