It's another Q&A edition of Optimal Health Daily, and I'm Dr. Neal, your host of the show.

Welcome back to another special Friday edition of Optimal Health Daily, where I answer your questions.

On the other days, I read health and fitness blogs to you, kind of like an ongoing audiobook.

Now I'm going to keep this intro nice and short so we can get right to today's question

and start optimizing your life.

Today's question came via email.

Roxanne writes,

Hi, Dr. Neal.

Are body scan machines useful or accurate?

I have a smart scale in my bathroom and just got an E-Volt 360

body scan done at my gym. The results were not even close. So what do you recommend? Thank you so much

for taking the time to send in your question, Roxanne. When I was in graduate school, smart scales

existed, but cost a lot of money. Now it seems we all

have smart scales in our bathrooms. Okay, I'm starting to feel old, so I'm going to change the subject.

Let's first talk about what smart scales actually are, then we'll talk about body scans and the

accuracy of each. Smart scales measure body weight, but can also predict

body fat percentage, muscle mass, water weight, how many calories you burn each day are basically your

metabolism, and more. They do this by using a process called body impedance analysis. You'll often see this abbreviated as BIA. I'll

describe more about BIA in a bit. But are these measurements actually accurate? I was only able to find

one study examining the accuracy of these home smart scales, and the news wasn't good.

The researchers found that none of the three smart scales they tested were accurate.

Now, we of course need more studies to test other brands, but for now, it seems that home smart scales may not be giving us the most accurate information.

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