“El Bus de la Salut” includes a new test to estimate the percentage of body fat
More than 1,100 people have taken tests for the prevention of cardiovascular and renal diseases for the second time to see their evolution.
‘El Bus de la Salut’ has incorporated this year the use of a bioimpedance electric scale, a new test to estimate the percentage of fat. It is a non-invasive method of measurement that is based on the electrical properties of the human body, the composition of the different tissues that form it and the total body water content.
The bioimpedance scale has four electrodes that act as the input of the current. The muscles, bones and blood vessels have a large percentage of water, so that the current easily passes through them. Because fat is a bad driver, it generates resistance to the passage of the current, and for this reason, it is possible to determine what percentage of the body is formed by fat. Some parameters that must be taken into account when performing a bioimpedance are the level of hydration, age, sex, race and physical condition.
‘El Bus de la Salut’ began a second phase of the project in 2019 in which the 8,402 people visited in the first phase, from 2015 to 2018, have begun to carry out tests to prevent cardiovascular and renal diseases. This second phase of the study, which will take place from 2019 to 2021, will allow to see the evolution of these people. Until the month of August 2019, more than 1,100 people had for the second time carried out prevention tests.
In the first phase, 71.7% of the 8,402 people who underwent the preventive tests carried out by ‘El Bus de la Salut’ from January 2015 to December 2018 presented some type of atheromatous disease, is at say, the decrease in caliber of the arteries due to the accumulation of fat plates.
The Diputació de Lleida and the Renal Foundation Jaume Arnó, together with the Department of Health of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Unit for Diagnosis and Treatment of Atherotrombotic Diseases (UDETMA) of the Institute of Biomedical Research of Lleida (IRBLleida), put underway ‘El Bus de la Salut’ in January 2015. The project has an approximate contribution of € 425,000 per year from the Diputació de Lleida.
During these four years, ‘El Bus de la Salut’ has moved to the counties of Lleida, in 28 municipalities, to carry out an early diagnosis of a target population between 45 and 70 years, randomly selected because they served one or more of cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension, smoking, obesity, dyslipidemia, etc.).
In total, 8,402 people have gone through the medicalized bus, 4,265 women and 4,137 men.
