Imidazole dipeptide content of dietary sources commonly consumed within the British diet

Abstract

Interest in the imidazole dipeptides (ImD) has increased in response to data showing elevated levels following b-alanine supplementation have improved athletic performance (1) and have anti-senescent effects (2) . The diet can provide a variety of sources of ImD, predominately anserine and carnosine. Previous analyses of ImD sources have primarily measured the ImD content of meat from aquatic mammals and game foods (3,4) , which are not commonly consumed within the British diet (5) . Therefore, calculation of ImD content provided by the British diet requires the measurement of reference values for the most commonly consumed foods within the diet.This study analysed triplicates of 10 commonly consumed foods within the British diet selected from the NDNS (5) to develop reference values to calculate ImD intake. So as samples were representative of the same quality (age, storage procedures) as those consumed within the general diet, samples were obtained from both supermarkets and specialist retailers. Thus samples encapsulated those that can be purchased across the socio-economic spectrum. Samples (n 3 · 10 mg) were obtained from core biopsies from three samples of each food (n 9 for each food measured) and were freeze-dried before being extracted in methanol :borate and analysed via HPLC (6) for their anserine and carnosine content.

Physiology and Pathophysiology of Carnosine

“…At least nobody has ever detected them in plants, fungi, or other eukaryotes, even though it must be said that it is not clear how good the techniques were and how thorough the search was for the presence of known or possibly unknown HCD in non-animal eukaryotes. Within the animal kingdom, HCD have only been detected in vertebrates and not in invertebrates, except from the reported presence of high concentrations of anserine and carnosine in prawn, but this has not been confirmed in a peer-reviewed paper (202). 64,80,91,201.…”

Carnosine—a natural bioactive dipeptide: bioaccessibility, bioavailability and health benefits

“…According to Suzuki, et al (2002), this might be explained by the high buffering capacity of carnosine which is a vital feature for glycolytic muscles, where anaerobic metabolism results in the accumulation of lactic acid. Seafood and prawns also present high content of carnosine ranging within 9.25-11.6 mg/g, while fish has lower content ranging from 0.11 to 7.78 mg/g, e.g., tuna, mackerel and rainbow trout (Jones et al, 2011;Preedy, 2015), whether it is boiling or broiling, the cooking process cause up to 50% loss of carnosine in beef and turkey meat, while the degradation of carnosine is lessened during microwave cooking (Peiretti and Meineri, 2015). The use of microwave cooking would thus help reduce the loss of carnosine and imidazole-related compounds.…”

Imidazole Dipeptides in Meat from Different Animal Species and Effect of Cooking Method on their Contents in Beef and Turkey Meat

“…Cooking did not cause a significant decrease in homocarnosine content in turkey meat. Jones et al (2011) analyzed 10 commonly consumed foods within the British diet and found the highest level of carnosine in beef, followed by pork, chicken, turkey, and lamb, while anserine content was highest in turkey and chicken meats, and lowest in lamb, beef, and pork.…”