Abstract
Using urinary sugars as a biomarker of consumption, we have previously shown that obese people consume significantly more sugars than individuals of normal weight. However, there is concern that recovery of this biomarker may differ between normal weight and obese individuals. A total of 19 subjects, divided into two groups according to their body mass index (BMI) (normal weight BMI⩽25 kg/m2, n=10; obese BMI⩾30 kg/m2, n=9), participated in a randomized crossover dietary intervention study of three diets providing 13, 30 and 50% of energy from sugars for 4 days each while living in a volunteer suite. The mean urinary sucrose and fructose excretions in 24-h urine increased with increasing sugar consumption over the three dietary periods in both BMI groups and were significantly different between the diets (P<0.01). There was no significant interaction effect of BMI class on the mean urinary excretions of these sugars with different sugar intakes, either as absolute values or expressed as a percentage of total sugar intake. In conclusion, BMI does not affect the validity of sucrose and fructose excretions in 24-h urine collections used as biomarkers to estimate total sugar consumption.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Tasevska N, Runswick SA, McTaggart A, Bingham SA . Urinary sucrose and fructose as biomarkers for sugar consumption. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2005; 14: 1287–1294.
Bingham S, Luben R, Welch A, Tasevska N, Wareham N, Khaw KT . Epidemiologic assessment of sugars consumption using biomarkers: comparisons of obese and nonobese individuals in the European prospective investigation of cancer Norfolk. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007; 16: 1651–1654.
Deane N, Smith HW . Fate of inulin and sucrose in normal subjects as determined by a urine reinfusion technique. J Clin Invest 1955; 34: 681–684.
Xing J, Chen JD . Alterations of gastrointestinal motility in obesity. Obes Res 2004; 12: 1723–1732.
Wisen O, Johansson C . Gastrointestinal function in obesity: motility, secretion, and absorption following a liquid test meal. Metabolism 1992; 41: 390–395.
Brun P, Castagliuolo I, Leo VD, Buda A, Pinzani M, Palu G et al. Increased intestinal permeability in obese mice: new evidence in the pathogenesis of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 2007; 292: G518–G525.
Kiely JM, Noh JH, Svatek CL, Pitt HA, Swartz-Basile DA . Altered small intestinal absorptive enzyme activities in leptin-deficient obese mice: influence of bowel resection. J Pediatr Surg 2006; 41: 1243–1249.
Ferraris RP, Vinnakota RR . Intestinal nutrient transport in genetically obese mice. Am J Clin Nutr 1995; 62: 540–546.
Department of Health. Dietary Reference Values for Food, Energy and Nutrients for the United Kingdom (Report on Health and Social Subjects No. 41). HMSO: London, 1991.
Bingham SA, Williams R, Cole TJ, Price CP, Cummings JH . Reference values for analytes of 24-h urine collections known to be complete. Ann Clin Biochem 1988; 25 (Part 6): 610–619.
Bingham S, Cummings JH . The use of 4-aminobenzoic acid as a marker to validate the completeness of 24 h urine collections in man. Clin Sci (Lond) 1983; 64: 629–635.
Jakobsen J, Ovesen L, Fagt S, Pedersen AN . Para-aminobenzoic acid used as a marker for completeness of 24 h urine: assessment of control limits for a specific HPLC method. Eur J Clin Nutr 1997; 51: 514–519.
Kuhnle GGC, Joosen AMCP, Wood TR, Runswick SA, Griffin JL, Bingham SA . Detection and quantification of sucrose as dietary biomarker using gas chromatography and liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry. Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom 2008; 22: 1–4.
Johansson G, Bingham S, Vahter M . A method to compensate for incomplete 24-hour urine collections in nutritional epidemiology studies. Public Health Nutr 1999; 2: 587–591.
Luceri C, Caderni G, Lodovici M, Spagnesi MT, Monserrat C, Lancioni L et al. Urinary excretion of sucrose and fructose as a predictor of sucrose intake in dietary intervention studies. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 1996; 5: 167–171.
Nelson M, Black AE, Morris JA, Cole TJ . Between- and within-subject variation in nutrient intake from infancy to old age: estimating the number of days required to rank dietary intakes with desired precision. Am J Clin Nutr 1989; 50: 155–167.
Bingham SA . The dietary assessment of individuals: methods, accuracy, new techniques and recommendations. Nutr Abstr Rev 1987; 57: 705–742.
Khazaeinia T, Jamali F . A comparison of gastrointestinal permeability induced by diclofenac-phospholipid complex with diclofenac acid and its sodium salt. J Pharm Pharm Sci 2003; 6: 352–359.
Mankertz J, Schulzke JD . Altered permeability in inflammatory bowel disease: pathophysiology and clinical implications. Curr Opin Gastroenterol 2007; 23: 379–383.
Kawabata H, Meddings JB, Uchida Y, Matsuda K, Sasahara K, Nishioka M . Sucrose permeability as a means of detecting diseases of the upper digestive tract. J Gastroenterol Hepatol 1998; 13: 1002–1006.
Acknowledgements
We thank Tommy Wood and Mahtab Sharifi for help in data collection, Valerie Church, Judith Wills and Hilary Slack for preparing the study diets and taking care of the volunteers and Professor Nick Finer for valuable discussions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Joosen, A., Kuhnle, G., Runswick, S. et al. Urinary sucrose and fructose as biomarkers of sugar consumption: comparison of normal weight and obese volunteers. Int J Obes 32, 1736–1740 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2008.145
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2008.145
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
The mediating role of obesity on the prospective association between urinary sucrose and diabetes incidence in a sub-cohort of the EPIC-Norfolk
Nutrition & Diabetes (2023)
-
Relevance of fructose intake in adolescence for fatty liver indices in young adulthood
European Journal of Nutrition (2021)
-
Putative role of the H+/sucrose symporter SLC45A3 as an osmolyte transporter in the kidney
Pflügers Archiv - European Journal of Physiology (2016)
-
Dietary biomarkers: advances, limitations and future directions
Nutrition Journal (2012)
-
Urinary fructose: a potential biomarker for dietary fructose intake in children
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2010)