Short-term changes in added sugar consumption by adolescents reflected in the carbon isotope ratio of fingerstick blood

Background: Consumption of added sugars (AS) and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) may adversely affect adolescents’ weight and cardiovascular disease risk. Reliance on self-reported dietary assessment methods is a common research limitation, which could be overcome by dietary intake biomarkers. Aim: The investigation was a proof-of-concept study to evaluate the proposed carbon isotope ratio (δ13C) biomarker of AS intake in adolescents, using a controlled feeding design. Methods: Participants ( n = 33, age 15.3 years, 53% female) underwent two seven-day controlled feeding periods in a randomly assigned order. Diets were matched in composition except for AS content (5% or 25% of total energy). Fasting fingerstick blood samples were collected daily during each diet period. Results: Fingerstick δ13C values changed from day 1 to 8 by –0.05 ± 0.071‰ on 5% AS, and +0.03 ± 0.083‰ on 25% AS ( p ≤ 0.001). Reliability was demonstrated between day 7 and 8 δ13C values on the 5% (ICC = 0.996 , p ≤ 0.001) and 25% (ICC = 0.997, p ≤ 0.001) AS diets. Conclusions: Larger scale investigations are warranted to determine if this technique could be applied to population-level research in order to help assess the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing the consumption of AS or SSB intake.

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Abstract MP42: Intakes of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Total Sugars are Associated with Higher Triglycerides in a Multi-Ethnic Sample of Children

Circulation ◽

10.1161/circ.129.suppl_1.mp42 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 129 (suppl_1) ◽

Author(s):

Maria I Van Rompay ◽

Nicola M McKeown ◽

Misha Eliasziw ◽

Elizabeth Goodman ◽

Virginia R Chomitz ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Disease Risk ◽

Cardiovascular Disease Risk ◽

Daily Intake ◽

Density Lipoprotein ◽

Sugar Sweetened Beverages ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Total Sugars ◽

Added Sugars ◽

Sweetened Beverages ◽

Low Hdl

Background: Intakes of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and added sugars have been targeted in efforts to reduce childhood obesity and cardiovascular disease risk factors in children. Although evidence is sparse in children, overconsumption of SSB and added sugars has been linked to greater dyslipidemia in adults. Objectives: To examine the association between intakes of SSB, added sugars, and total sugars, with blood lipids in a multi-ethnic sample of children with prevalent obesity. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we examined associations between intakes of SSB, added sugars, and total sugars with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and triglycerides (TG) in a sample of 276 children aged 8-15 y (mean age 11.8 y; 39% white, 14% black, 16% Hispanic/Latino, 12% Asian, and 19% multi-racial/other) with prevalent overweight/obesity (45% with ≥85 th BMI percentile and 25% with ≥95 th ). Percentage of daily calories from SSB, as well as intakes of added sugars (tsp) and total sugars (g), were estimated using the 2004 Block Food Frequency Questionnaire for Children. HDL-C and TG were obtained from a fasting blood sample. Percentage of calories from SSB, added sugars, and energy-adjusted total sugars were dichotomized at their upper tertile cut-points, specifically, at 7%, 13 tsp, and 116 g, respectively, creating two intake categories for each dietary exposure. ANCOVA was used to analyze the data; covariates were age, sex, race/ethnicity, obesity, total calories, and intakes of saturated fat and dietary fiber. TG was log-transformed prior to analysis; low HDL-C was defined as ≤45 mg/dL and borderline/high TG, as ≥75 (aged ≤9 y) or ≥90 mg/dL (≥10 y). Results: Median daily intake of total sugars was 94.2 g, 47% of which was derived from added sugars (median: 9.9 tsp, range: 1-76 tsp). Only 12% of children followed the American Heart Association calorie-specific recommendations for intake of added sugars. Median contribution of SSB to total calories was 4.4% (range: 0 to 51%), and SSB calories contributed 36% (range: 0 to 100%) of calories from added sugars. Both low HDL-C and borderline/high TG were prevalent (26-27% overall) and were more common in children classified as obese (61% and 53%, respectively) than in those who were not obese (16% and 17%, respectively, P<0.0001 for each); however, intakes of SSB, added sugars, and total sugars did not differ with obesity. In multivariate-adjusted models, higher TG was associated with high intakes of SSB (75.3 vs. 67.6 mg/dL, P=0.04) and total sugars (76.5 vs. 67.0 mg/dL, P=0.01), while the association with added sugars was not significant. There were no associations with HDL-C. Conclusions: Among children with prevalent obesity, higher intakes of SSB and total sugars were associated with higher TG concentrations, but not with lower HDL-C. Further research is needed on the health implications of lower SSB and sugar intakes in diverse samples.

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The carbon isotope ratio of plant organic material reflects temporal and spatial variations in CO2 within tropical forest formations in Trinidad

Oecologia ◽

10.1007/bf00317423 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 89 (3) ◽

pp. 435-441 ◽

Cited By ~ 91

Author(s):

M. S. J. Broadmeadow ◽

H. Griffiths ◽

C. Maxwell ◽

A. M. Borland

Keyword(s):

Tropical Forest ◽

Carbon Isotope ◽

Organic Material ◽

Isotope Ratio ◽

Carbon Isotope Ratio ◽

Spatial Variations ◽

Temporal And Spatial Variations ◽

Temporal And Spatial

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Objective Biomarkers for Total Added Sugar Intake – Are We on a Wild Goose Chase?

Advances in Nutrition ◽

10.1093/advances/nmaa093 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 1429-1436

Author(s):

Jimmy Chun Yu Louie

Keyword(s):

Human Physiology ◽

Current Knowledge ◽

Dietary Assessment ◽

Added Sugar ◽

Added Sugars ◽

Sugar Intake ◽

Adverse Health Outcomes ◽

Dietary Assessment Methods ◽

Nutritional Sciences ◽

Wild Goose

ABSTRACT Misreporting of added sugar intake has been the major criticism of studies linking high added sugar consumption to adverse health outcomes. Despite the advancement in dietary assessment methodologies, the bias introduced by self-reporting can never be completely eliminated. The search for an objective biomarker for total added sugar intake has therefore been a topic of interest. In this article, the reasons this search may be a wild goose chase will be outlined and discussed. The limitations and inability of the 2 candidate biomarkers, namely urinary sucrose and fructose and δ¹³C isotope, which are based on the 2 only possible ways (i.e., difference in metabolism and plant sources) to identify added sugar based on current knowledge in human physiology and food and nutritional sciences, are discussed in detail. Validation studies have shown that these 2 candidate biomarkers are unlikely to be suitable for use as a predictive or calibration biomarker for total added sugar intake. Unless advancement in our understanding in human physiology and food and nutritional sciences leads to new potential ways to distinguish between naturally occurring and added sugars, it is extremely unlikely that any accurate objective added sugar biomarker could be found. It may be time to stop the futile effort in searching for such a biomarker, and resources may be better spent on further improving and innovating dietary assessment methods to minimize the bias introduced by self-reporting.

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