Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Short Communication
  • Published:

Reliability of fasting plasma alkylresorcinol metabolites concentrations measured 4 months apart

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 66, pages 968–970 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Alkylresorcinols (AR) have been suggested as specific dietary biomarkers of whole-grain wheat and rye intake. AR are metabolised to 3,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHBA) and 3-(3,5-dihydroxyphenyl)-1-propanoic acid (DHPPA), which have longer apparent half-lives and were recently proposed to better reflect long-term whole-grain consumption than the intact AR. The objective of this study was to analyse the reliability—expressed by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC)—of AR metabolite concentrations among 100 participants from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam study who provided two fasting plasma samples 4 months apart. DHBA and DHPPA concentrations were not significantly different between the first and second measurement over the 4-month period (P>0.05). The ICC was 0.32 (95% confidence interval (CI)=0.13–0.49) for DHBA and 0.37 (95%CI=0.19–0.53) for DHPPA. These results suggest that AR metabolites cannot be considered to be better biomarkers of whole-grain wheat and rye intake than the intact AR in fasting plasma (ICC=0.42).

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Ross AB, Kamal-Eldin A, Åman P . Dietary alkylresorcinols: absorption, bioactivities, and possible use as biomarkers of whole-grain wheat- and rye-rich foods. Nutr Rev 2004; 62: 81–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Linko AM, Juntunen KS, Mykkänen HM, Adlercreutz H . Whole-grain rye bread consumption by women correlates with plasma alkylresorcinols and increases their concentration compared with low-fiber wheat bread. J Nutr 2005; 135: 580–583.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Fleiss J . Reliability of measurement. In: Fleiss J (ed). The Design and Analysis of Clinical Experiments. Wiley and Sons: New York, 1986 pp 1–32.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Montonen J, Landberg R, Kamal-Eldin A, Aman P, Knueppel S, Boeing H et al. Reliability of fasting plasma alkylresorcinol concentrations measured 4 months apart. Eur J Clin Nutr 2010; 64: 698–703.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Landberg R, Linko AM, Kamal-Eldin A, Vessby B, Adlercreutz H, Åman P . Human plasma kinetics and relative bioavailability of alkylresorcinols after intake of rye bran. J Nutr 2006; 136: 2760–2765.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Soderholm PP, Koskela AH, Lundin JE, Tikkanen MJ, Adlercreutz HC . Plasma pharmacokinetics of alkylresorcinol metabolites: new candidate biomarkers for whole-grain rye and wheat intake. Am J Clin Nutr 2009; 90: 1167–1171.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Boeing H, Wahrendorf J, Becker N . EPIC-Germany–A source for studies into diet and risk of chronic diseases. European Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. Ann Nutr Metab 1999; 43: 195–204.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Boeing H, Korfmann A, Bergmann MM . Recruitment procedures of EPIC-Germany. European Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. Ann Nutr Metab 1999; 43: 205–215.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Efron B, Tibshirani R An Introduction to the Bootstrap. Chapman & Hall, 1993.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  10. Landberg R, Townsend MK, Neelakantan N, Sun Q, Sampson L, Spiegelman D et al. Alkylresorcinol metabolite concentrations in spot urine samples correlated with whole grain and cereal fiber intake but showed low to modest reproducibility over one to three years in US Women. J Nutr 2012 e-pub ahead of print 23 March 2012.

  11. Ross AB, Aman P, Kamal-Eldin A . Identification of cereal alkylresorcinol metabolites in human urine-potential biomarkers of wholegrain wheat and rye intake. J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci 2004; 809: 125–130.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Rosner B, Willett WC, Spiegelman D . Correction of logistic regression relative risk estimates and confidence intervals for systematic within-person measurement error. Stat Med 1989; 8: 1051–1069. ; discussion 71-73.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Förderkennzeichen 0315381A); Nordforsk (Centre of excellence programme Helga); and by the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS). The funding agencies had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. The responsibility for the content of this manuscript lies with the authors. The authors would like to thank Ellen Kohlsdorf, Herbert Piechot, Andrea Teichmann and Janicka Nilsson for skilful technical assistance.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany

    J Montonen, H Boeing & A Steffen

  2. Department of Food Science, BioCentre, Swedish University of Agriculture Science, Uppsala, Sweden

    R Landberg, A Kamal-Eldin & P Åman

  3. Molecular Epidemiology Group, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), Berlin-Buch, Germany

    T Pischon

Authors
  1. J Montonen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. R Landberg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. A Kamal-Eldin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. P Åman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. H Boeing
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. A Steffen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. T Pischon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to A Steffen.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare not conflict of interest.

Additional information

Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on European Journal of Clinical Nutrition website

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Montonen, J., Landberg, R., Kamal-Eldin, A. et al. Reliability of fasting plasma alkylresorcinol metabolites concentrations measured 4 months apart. Eur J Clin Nutr 66, 968–970 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2012.66

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2012.66

Keywords

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links