Full Text

Turn on search term navigation

© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Assessing nutrient intake is essential for understanding body homeostasis and diet–health interactions. Traditional methods, such as dietary questionnaires and quality indices, are limited by subjectivity and variability in food composition tables. Metabolomic markers, like urinary hippuric acid, provide an objective means to estimate food and nutrient intake, helping to link dietary patterns with metabolic outputs and health outcomes. This study uniquely evaluates urinary hippuric acid as a putative biomarker of nut intake, expanding the previously known role as a fruit intake marker, and investigates sex-related differences in the excretion. Methods: Using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, 34 urinary metabolites from 138 participants (69.7% women) in the Dietary Deal project were analyzed. Metabolite concentrations were categorized by median adherence to the EAT-Lancet score (≤p50 or >p50). A validated Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) assessed dietary and energy intake. Correlation analyses linked metabolites to the 14 EAT-Lancet food groups, and a linear regression adjusted model examined associations between urinary hippuric acid and fruit/nut consumption, with sensitivity analysis for sex. Results: The EAT-Lancet index, stratified by median adherence, effectively distinguished between high and low dietary intake of fruits (p = 0.012) and nuts (p < 0.001). Urinary hippuric acid concentrations were found to be influenced by sex (p = 0.020), with females showing a 44.7% higher mean concentration. Overall, urinary hippuric acid levels were positively associated with FFQ-estimated nut consumption (p = 0.049), providing the first evidence of potential suitability as a nut intake biomarker. Conclusions: Hippuric acid emerges as a promising dietary biomarker for assessing nut intake in healthy populations. This study provides novel insights that extend the application of hippuric acid to dietary nut assessment and emphasizes the importance of a sex-specific interpretation for precision nutrition purposes using NMR technology.

Details

Title
Urinary Hippuric Acid as a Sex-Dependent Biomarker for Fruit and Nut Intake Raised from the EAT-Lancet Index and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Analysis
Author
Fernández-Cruz, Edwin 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; de la O Víctor 1 ; Fernández-Diaz, Cristina M 2 ; Matía-Martín Pilar 3 ; Ángel, Rubio-Herrera M 4 ; Amigó Nuria 5 ; Calle-Pascual, Alfonso L 6   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Alfredo, Martínez J 7   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 IMDEA Food, CEI UAM + CSIC, Carretera de Cantoblanco 8, 28049 Madrid, Spain; [email protected] (V.d.l.O.); [email protected] (C.M.F.-D.), Faculty of Health Sciences, International University of La Rioja (UNIR), 26006 Logroño, Spain 
 IMDEA Food, CEI UAM + CSIC, Carretera de Cantoblanco 8, 28049 Madrid, Spain; [email protected] (V.d.l.O.); [email protected] (C.M.F.-D.) 
 Endocrinology and Nutrition Department, San Carlos Clinical Hospital and Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria San Carlos (IdISSC), 28040 Madrid, Spain; [email protected] (P.M.-M.); [email protected] (M.Á.R.-H.), Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Diabetes y Enfermedades Metabólicas Asociadas (CIBERDEM), 28029 Madrid, Spain; [email protected], Department of Medicine II, Faculty of Medicine, Complutense University of Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain 
 Endocrinology and Nutrition Department, San Carlos Clinical Hospital and Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria San Carlos (IdISSC), 28040 Madrid, Spain; [email protected] (P.M.-M.); [email protected] (M.Á.R.-H.), Department of Medicine II, Faculty of Medicine, Complutense University of Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain 
 Departament de Ciències Mèdiques Bàsiques, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43201 Tarragona, Spain; [email protected] 
 Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Diabetes y Enfermedades Metabólicas Asociadas (CIBERDEM), 28029 Madrid, Spain; [email protected], Department of Medicine II, Faculty of Medicine, Complutense University of Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Fisiopatología de La Obesidad y La Nutrición (CIBEROBN), Institute of Health Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain 
 IMDEA Food, CEI UAM + CSIC, Carretera de Cantoblanco 8, 28049 Madrid, Spain; [email protected] (V.d.l.O.); [email protected] (C.M.F.-D.), Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Fisiopatología de La Obesidad y La Nutrición (CIBEROBN), Institute of Health Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain, Department of Medicine and Endocrinology, Campus of Soria, University of Valladolid, 42004 Soria, Spain 
First page
348
Publication year
2025
Publication date
2025
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
22181989
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3223926595
Copyright
© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.