Evaluation of potential metabolomic-based biomarkers of protein, carbohydrate and fat intakes using a controlled...

Objective biomarkers of dietary exposure are needed to establish reliable diet-disease associations. Unfortunately, robust biomarkers of macronutrient intakes are scarce. We aimed to assess the utility of serum, 24-h urine and spot urine high-dimensional metabolites for the development of biomarkers of daily intake of total energy, protein, carbohydrate and fat, and the percent of energy from these macronutrients (%E).

A 2-week controlled feeding study mimicking the participants' habitual diets was conducted among 153 postmenopausal women from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI). Fasting serum metabolomic profiles were analyzed using a targeted liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) assay for aqueous metabolites and a direct-injection-based quantitative lipidomics platform. Urinary metabolites were analyzed using ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy at 800 MHz and by untargeted gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Variable selection was performed to build prediction models for each dietary variable.

The highest cross-validated multiple correlation coefficients (CV-R²) for protein intake (%E) and carbohydrate intake (%E) using metabolites only were 36.3 and 37.1%, respectively. With the addition of established dietary biomarkers (doubly labeled water for energy and urinary nitrogen for protein), the CV-R² reached 55.5% for energy (kcal/d), 52.0 and 45.0% for protein (g/d, %E), 55.9 and 37.0% for carbohydrate (g/d, %E).

Selected panels of serum and urine metabolites, without the inclusion of doubly labeled water and urinary nitrogen biomarkers, give a reliable and robust prediction of daily intake of energy from protein and carbohydrate.