Urinary Sucrose and Fructose as Biomarkers for Sugar Consumption

Abstract

The use of 24-hour urinary sucrose and fructose as potential biomarkers for sugars consumption was investigated in two studies of 21 healthy participants living in a volunteer suite where dietary intake was known and all specimens collected. The dose-response was assessed in 12 males using a randomized crossover design of three diets containing constant levels of 63, 143, and 264 g of sugars for 10 days each. Both sugars and sucrose intake were significantly correlated with the sum of sucrose and fructose concentration in urine (0.888; P < 0.001). To assess effects with volunteers consuming their habitual varying diets, seven males and six females were fed their usual diet (assessed beforehand from four consecutive self-completed 7-day food diaries) for 30 days under controlled conditions in the volunteer suite. The mean (FSD) calculated total sugars intake was 202 F 69 g/d, 41% from sucrose. Mean (FSD) urinary sucrose and fructose were 36.6 F 16.6 and 61.8 F 61.3 mg/d, respectively. The sum of sucrose and fructose in urine was significantly correlated with sugars (0.841; P < 0.001) and sucrose intake (0.773; P = 0.002). In the regression, 200 g of sugars intake predicted f100 mg of sucrose and fructose in urine. The correlation between individual means of randomized 16 days of sugars intake and 8 days of sugars excretion data (as used in validation studies) remained as high as that obtained with the means of 30-day measurements and the regression estimates were very similar. Twenty-four -hour urinary sucrose and fructose could be grouped into a new category of biomarkers, predictive biomarkers, that can be used in studies determining the structure of dietary measurement error in free living individuals and to relate sugars intake to disease risk. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2005;14(5):1287 -94)

Twenty-four-hour urinary water-soluble vitamin levels correlate with their intakes in free-living Japanese university students

“…For example, 24-h urinary nitrogen is established as a marker for protein intake (Bingham, 2003), urinary potassium for potassium intake (Tasevska et al, 2006), urinary sugars for sugar intake (Luceri et al, 1996;Bingham et al, 2007;Tasevska et al, 2005Tasevska et al, , 2008, and urinary thiamine for thiamine intake . These studies can be classified into two categories in terms of whether or not an intervention was used.…”

Metabolomics as a tool in the identification of dietary biomarkers

“…In an effort to address some of these measurement issues, the use of dietary biomarkers, which are found in biological Proceedings of the Nutrition Society samples and are related to ingestion of a specific food or food group, have emerged (16) . Currently dietary biomarkers exist for salt, protein, sucrose/fructose intake (sodium/nitrogen/sucrose and fructose measured in 24 h urine samples) and energy expenditure (the doubly labelled water technique) (2,17) . These dietary biomarkers can be used in conjunction with traditional dietary assessment methods to improve the accuracy of dietary intake measurement and can also be used to more accurately associate dietary intake with disease risk and nutritional status (18) .…”

The potential application of a biomarker approach for the investigation of low-calorie sweetener exposure

“…Examples of such biomarkers are carotenoids and aflatoxins (73) . The class of predictive biomarkers was first proposed by Tasevska et al (80) when describing the use of urinary fructose and sucrose as markers for sugar intake. Although relatively small amounts of a dose were recovered in the form of urinary sucrose and fructose, it was demonstrated that a higher level of correlation (R > 0·6) with dietary intake existed than with concentration or replacement biomarkers and therefore this class of biomarker would fall between recovery and concentration biomarkers.…”