Exploring the Association Between Habitual Food Intake and the Urine and Blood Metabolome in Adolescents and Young Adults: A Cohort Study

Scope: Habitual diet may be reflected in metabolite profiles that can improve accurate assessment of dietary exposure and further enhance our understanding of their link to health conditions. The study aims to explore the relationship of habitual food intake with blood and urine metabolites in adolescents and young adults.

Methods: The study population comprises 228 participants (94 males and 134 females) of the DONALD study. Dietary intake is assessed by yearly repeated 3d-food records. Habitual diet is estimated as the average consumption of 23 food groups in adolescence. Using an untargeted metabolomics approach, the study quantifies 2638 metabolites in plasma and 1407 metabolites in urine. In each sex, unique diet-metabolite associations using orthogonal projection to latent structures (oPLS) and random forests (RF) is determined.

Results: Six metabolites in agreement between oPLS and RF in urine, one in female (vanillylmandelate to processed/other meat) and five in males (indole-3-acetamide, and N6-methyladenosine to eggs; hippurate, citraconate/glutaconate, and X - 12111 to vegetables) are observed. No association in blood in agreement is observed.

Conclusion: A limited reflection of habitual food group intake by single metabolites in urine and not in blood is observed. The explored biomarkers should be confirmed in additional studies.