Body adiposity index assess body fat with high accuracy in nondialyzed chronic kidney disease patients.

OBJECTIVE: High body fat (BF) is an alarming condition that also affects nondialyzed chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. Distinct methods are used to evaluate BF; however, in CKD population it remains unclear which one is more reliable showing high accuracy. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), used as reference method to estimate adiposity, is expensive and time consuming to be applied in clinical settings. Recently, a new body adiposity index (BAI), that estimates BF from easily accessible measures, was validated in the general population. The aim of this study was to evaluate which simple and practical method, routinely used to estimate BF, shows the highest accuracy compared with DXA, in nondialyzed CKD patients.

DESIGN AND METHODS: In this cross-sectional study BF was estimated by DXA, bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), anthropometry (ANTHRO), and BAI. Serum leptin levels were determined.

RESULTS: Studied patients (n = 134) were 55% males, 54% overweight/obese, and 64.9 ± 12.5 years old, with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) = 29.0 ± 12.7 ml/min. The correlation coefficient was higher between DXA vs. ANTHRO (r = 0.76) and BAI (r = 0.61) than with BIA (r = 0.57), after adjusting for gender, age, and eGFR (P < 0.0001). Therefore, the Lin's concordance correlation coefficient and Bland-Altman plots were performed to measure the accuracy (C_b) between DXA with both ANTHRO and BAI. A higher accuracy (C_b = 0.82) and lower mean difference (-3.4%) was observed for BAI than for ANTHRO (C_b = 0.61; -8.4%). Leptin levels correlated (P < 0.0001) with DXA (r = 0.56) and BAI (r = 0.59).

CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that BAI estimates BF with high accuracy in nondialyzed CKD patients and may be helpful in the treatment of this population with increased BF.