Biomarkers of meat and seafood intake: an extensive literature review

Abstract

Meat, including fish and shellfish, represents a valuable constituent of most balanced diets. Consumption of different types of meat and fish has been associated with both beneficial and adverse health effects. While white meats and fish are generally associated with positive health outcomes, red and especially processed meats have been associated with colorectal cancer and other diseases. The contribution of these foods to the development or prevention of chronic diseases is still not fully elucidated. One of the main problems is the difficulty in properly evaluating meat intake, as the existing self-reporting tools for dietary assessment may be imprecise and therefore affected by systematic and random errors. Dietary biomarkers measured in biological fluids have been proposed as possible objective measurements of the actual intake of specific foods and as a support for classical assessment methods. Good biomarkers for meat intake should reflect total dietary intake of meat, independent of source or processing and should be able to differentiate meat consumption from that of other protein-rich foods; alternatively, meat intake biomarkers should be specific to each of the different meat sources (e.g., red vs. white; fish, bird, or mammal) and/or cooking methods. In this paper, we present a systematic investigation of the scientific literature while providing a comprehensive overview of the possible biomarker(s) for the intake of different types of meat, including fish and shellfish, and processed and heated meats according to published guidelines for biomarker reviews (BFIrev). The most promising biomarkers are further validated for their usefulness for dietary assessment by published validation criteria.

Protein Intake and Frailty: A Matter of Quantity, Quality, and Timing

“…Lastly, heterogeneity in response to specific nutrients and dietary patterns among older adults may exist [ 141 , 142 ]. The implementation of integrated “omics” approaches may lead to more accurate dietary assessments [ 143 ] and the elaboration and monitoring of personalized dietary plans, tailored to an individual’s metabolic phenotypes and needs [ 144 ]. This information could represent a critical step to guide future scientific consensus-based, personalized dietary counseling [ 142 ].…”

Specificity, Dose Dependency, and Kinetics of Markers of Chicken and Beef Intake Using Targeted Quantitative LC‐MS/MS: A Human Intervention Trial

“…This is in line with previous results proposing these two compounds as specific meat markers. [12,19] Interestingly, these compounds also reflect best the dose of beef consumed in our study, although at much lower plasma levels. It has been shown that bovine species also contain anserine although much less than birds.…”

“…A recent study compared chicken, beef, and pork intake as well as a nonmeat protein source and evaluated the metabolite response in urine by applying untargeted metabolomics. [19] A set of compounds was acquired with high selectivity for the meat type. These compounds were then used by the authors to set up classification models for the estimation of the type of meat consumed.…”

“…To achieve accurate estimations of the amount of red meat consumed, novel compound classes clearly need to be investigated. Recently, Cuparencu et al [19] found a number of putative red meat intake markers, mainly hydroxyprolinecontaining di-and tri-peptides that were not part of our analysis. These might be a good starting point for further study of dosedependent red meat markers to improve estimation of red meat dose.…”

“…[16] Furthermore, the recent work by Cuparencu et al compared the intake of chicken, pork, beef, and a control protein source in an untargeted metabolomics approach and reported a set of compounds derived from collagen degradation, amino acid metabolism as well as flavor compounds, which were validated for plausibility, robustness, time-response, and prediction performance. [19] Here, we searched for novel compounds and additionally evaluated reported meat biomarkers in literature. We performed a human intervention trial focusing on various defined doses of meat (either chicken or beef) in a crossover design.…”