Is your diet working effectively? Is your new exercise program really making you healthier? For too long, watching and waiting have been the only ways to answer these questions. But now, thanks to new cutting-edge technology, determining your overall health is a five-minute test away.

It's common knowledge that the key to evaluating your fitness level lies in assessing the ratio between your body's fat and muscle. (A healthy person will have more muscle than fat). The bad news: Your bathroom scale can't help you here. The good news: Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) can. Through a simple, painless procedure, a trained BIA technician can determine your health and fitness level by using a device that's both portable and affordable, making it accessible to people in many different environments.

How it works...

BIA uses a low dose of electrical current to assess three vital aspects of your body's health: percentage of body fat, body-cell mass (BCM) and extracellular mass (ECM). Body-cell mass is the weight of your muscle and organ tissue, in addition to red cells and tissue cells.

Extracellular mass consists of a combination of solids (bone and cartilage, for example) and extracellular fluids.

While the specific mechanics and mathematics of the procedure are quite complex, the basic idea is simple: Lean tissues, such as muscles, are good conductors of electricity, while fat and bone are poor conductors. By measuring the way the electrical current travels through the body, BIA can determine your body's composition. For this reason, BIA can show you tangible results (or a lack thereof) as you work to decrease your body fat and increase your muscle mass.

Just as important is BIA's ability to measure body-cell mass - it's one of the best predictors of overall health and longevity. Building muscle mass combats the aging process, along with many of its associated health problems, and BIA is the first method to accurately gauge body cell mass through a quick and easy procedure.

Don't worry - no needles

So, what's a BIA appointment like? Actually, it's pretty simple. You lie on a table with your arms and legs away from your body. The technician attaches small electrodes to your hands and feet, and in less than five minutes it's all over. The electrical current is so small that it's undetectable - most patients don't feel anything at all.

The procedure can be performed as often as you like. For tracking the progress of a diet and exercise program, an assessment every three to six weeks is recommended.

^{Ref: Health Sciences Institute Vol 4, No.11}