O'Brien DM, Niles KR, Black J, Schoeller DA. The Breath Carbon Isotope Ratio Reflects Short-term Added-Sugar Intake in a Dose-Response, Crossover Feeding Study of 12 Healthy Adults.
J Nutr 2021;
151:628-635. [PMID:
33438009 PMCID:
PMC7948200 DOI:
10.1093/jn/nxaa352]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2020] [Revised: 09/21/2020] [Accepted: 10/13/2020] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Objective dietary biomarkers are urgently needed for a wider range of foods and nutrients. The breath carbon isotope ratio (CIR; measured as δ13C values) has potential as a noninvasive measure of short-term added sugar (AS) intake but has not been evaluated in a controlled-feeding study.
OBJECTIVE
The aim was to evaluate the effect of short-term AS intake on breath CIR in a dose-response, randomized, crossover feeding study.
METHODS
Six men and 6 women, aged 25 to 60 y, were randomly assigned to a balanced sequence of 5 dietary treatments. Three treatments delivered low (0 g/d), medium (75 g/d), or high (150 g/d) amounts of AS over the course of a single day's breakfast and lunch and 2 switched high and low intake amounts between breakfast and lunch. Experimental meals delivered 60% of daily energy and added-sugar targets. There was a washout period of 1-2 wk between treatments. Breath was collected at 2-h intervals from 08:00 (fasting) to 16:00 h. Breath CIR was measured using cavity ring-down spectroscopy, and the effects of dietary treatments and baseline were evaluated using multivariate linear regression.
RESULTS
Breath CIR showed a significant response to increasing AS intake at all sampling time points (all P < 0.0001), with a dose-response of 0.030 (95% CI: 0.024, 0.037) ‰/g. Fasting breath CIR (baseline) influenced postfeeding breath CIR at all sampling time points (P < 0.0001); however, effect sizes were largest in the morning. For afternoon-collected samples (14:00 and 16:00), the effect of recent AS intake (lunch) was 4-fold greater than the effect of previous added-sugar intake (breakfast).
CONCLUSIONS
These findings support the potential of the breath CIR as a biomarker of short-term AS intake in healthy US adults. More work is needed to evaluate other potential dietary effects and whether multiple breath collections could capture daily AS intake.
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