Katie Adams , 2025-05-01 22:00:00
German medical device company seca rolled out the first portable body composition scanner designed for primary care settings on Thursday. The product, called Alpha, seeks to give primary care providers a more accurate picture of their patient’s health.
During an annual exam, physicians usually check the patient’s weight, height and vitals. However, they have long used outdated methods of body composition measurement, such as body mass index (BMI) — which many healthcare leaders have criticized for being a misleading and racially biased tool for analyzing a patient’s health.
“As a result, providers have been unable to monitor and flag health measures such as early
signs of excess adiposity, age-related muscle decline, and the total body impact of medications like GLP-1s in real time,” explained Nina Crowley, director of clinical education and partnerships at seca.
Seca is addressing this gap in care by introducing body composition screenings into primary care visits.
The Alpha scanner uses a method called bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). The scanner passes a low-level electrical current through the body because different tissues, such as fat, muscle and water, conduct electricity differently. By measuring the resistance to this current, seca’s device calculates key components of body composition, including fat mass, muscle mass and hydration levels, Crowley explained.
The scan only takes 24 seconds and provides immediate results, she added.
Equipped with this data, primary care providers can have more meaningful discussions
about their patient’s health goals, treatment options and lifestyle changes, Crowley stated. She also pointed out that body composition scans can lead to earlier intervention for conditions like sarcopenia, obesity and metabolic disorders.
Seca’s competitors in the clinical grade BIA space include Inbody, Evolt, Tanita and Valhalla, Crowley said.
The company differentiates itself by delivering “the most accurate body composition results” that account for patients’ age, gender and ethnicity, she remarked. She also highlighted the company’s integration abilities.
“Seca’s products are specifically engineered for clinical settings, designed to seamlessly integrate into existing workflows. This ensures providers can easily capture, interpret and act on body composition data within the realities of busy healthcare environments,” Crowley explained.
She noted that seca has 65% of the global market share in the medical weighing and measuring space, serving 110 different countries. Some of its biggest health system customers in the U.S. include Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente and NYU Langone Health.
Photo: Natali_Mis, Getty Images
