Abstract
The purpose of this study was to measure circumference of four body parts of each Sasang groups with Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA), and evaluate its usefulness for Sasang type diagnostic test. We obtained the circumference measures of neck (CN), chest (CC), waist (CW), and hip (CH) of 91 college students using BIA and standardized by sex and age. The validity of Sasang group prediction with CC was evaluated. The Tae-Eum group (104.87${\pm}$5.19, 108.47${\pm}$4.96, 116.00${\pm}$9.39, 110.4${\pm}$5.29. neck, chest, waist and hip, respectively) has significantly (p<0.001) bigger circumferences than So-Yang (97.79${\pm}$3.82, 100.02${\pm}$4.21, 101.02${\pm}$7.88, 101.95${\pm}$4.06) and So-Eum (95.63${\pm}$4.67, 96.93${\pm}$4.80, 97.63${\pm}$7.72, 99.86${\pm}$4.40) groups at very four measures. Discriminant functions with CC can be used for Tae-Eum Sasang type diagnostic test with 91.2% of overall Percentage Correctly Predicted (PCP). Tae-Eum type-specific sensitivity was 73.3% and Tae-Eum type-specific specificity was 94.7%. The strength and weakness of measurement and standardization methods for Sasang type diagnostic test, and the methods for the standardization of physical traits with sex and age were discussed. Our study showed distinctive physical features of Tae-Eum type and the usefulness of BIA for the Sasang type diagnosis.
