Soft drinks are associated with weight gain. This is particularly true for sugar sweetened soft drinks. Sugar is problematic to body weight regulation when refined and in liquid sources such as sugar sweetened soft drinks because it overloads the liver with nutrients and increases flux through the de novo lipogenesis pathway. This increases fatty acid synthesis, and these fatty acids may enter the circulation and accumulate in tissues where they cause insulin resistance. Interest in sugar sweetened soft drinks have increased as the association between sugar and obesity has been increasingly evidenced. Researchers are therefore interested in measuring sugar sweetened soft drink intake. On way to achieve this is through the use of questionnaires that allow the individual to self report on their own soft drink intake. However, the reliability of these questionnaires may not be high because people have been shown to under or over report nutritional intake in such cases.
Monitoring subjects in a metabolic ward is a more accurate way of monitoring sugar sweetened soft drink intake. However, this is not applicable to the real World because it lead to inherent bias in subject drinking behaviour and is not practical for large studies. Researchers therefore have a requirement for a way to measure the intake of soft drinks without the need to monitor the subject or rely on self reporting. One solution to this is the use of biomarkers that are associated with the intake of sugar sweetened soft drinks. For example, in one study1 researcher analysed associations between sugar sweetened soft drink intake and certain metabolic parameters. The result of this study showed that 4 potential biomarkers in plasma were able to accurately predict sugar sweetened soft drink intake. These markers were formate, citrulline, taurine and isocitrate. Research such as this opens new avenues for researchers who wish to study sugar sweetened soft drink intake without having to rely on self reported intakes.
RdB
