Original Article

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2008) 62, 1139–1147; doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602829; published online 13 June 2007

Twenty-four-hour urinary thiamine as a biomarker for the assessment of thiamine intake

Contributors: NT was involved in the study design, processed the dietary data, did the statistical analysis, interpreted the data and drafted the manuscript. NT and SAR recruited the subjects and were responsible for data collection and urine analysis. SAR introduced the method for urinary thiamine analysis. AMT helped with processing of the dietary data. SAB obtained the funding, initiated and supervised the project, designed the study and revised the manuscript. SAR and AMT commented on the manuscript. None of the authors had a conflict of interest.

N Tasevska1,3, S A Runswick1, A McTaggart1,2 and S A Bingham1,2

  1. 1MRC Dunn Human Nutrition Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  2. 2Institute of Public Health, Strangeways Research Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Correspondence: Professor SA Bingham, MRC Dunn Human Nutrition Unit, University of Cambridge, Wellcome Trust/MRC Building, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2XY, UK. E-mail: sab@mrc-dunn.cam.ac.uk

3Current address: King's College London, Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, London, UK.

Received 15 February 2007; Revised 30 April 2007; Accepted 1 May 2007; Published online 13 June 2007.

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Abstract

Objective:

 

To investigate 24-h urinary thiamine as a potential biomarker for thiamine intake for use in validation studies to assess the validity of dietary intake data collected by self-reporting dietary methods.

Subjects:

 

Seven male and six female healthy participants living for 30 days in a metabolic suite under strictly controlled conditions consuming their usual diet as assessed beforehand from four consecutive 7-day food diaries kept at home. During the 30-day study, all 24-h urine specimens were collected, validated for their completeness and analysed for thiamine.

Results:

 

Thirty-day mean (plusminuss.d.) calculated thiamine intake was 2.22plusminus0.55 mg/day. Thirty-day mean (plusminuss.d.) urinary excretion of thiamine was 526.5plusminus193.0 mug/day (24.7plusminus8.10% of intake). There was a highly significant correlation between individuals' 30-day means of thiamine intake and their mean excretion level (r=0.720; P=0.006), where 1 mg of thiamine intake predicted 268.2 mug of thiamine in urine. The correlations between intake and excretion remained significant when measurement from a single 24-h urine collection was used (r=0.56).

Conclusion:

 

Twenty-four-hour urinary thiamine can be used as a concentration biomarker for thiamine intake in dietary validation studies.

Keywords:

dietary biomarkers, urinary thiamine, thiamine intake, metabolic study

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