Biomarkers of meat and seafood intake: an extensive literature review

Cătălina Cuparencu,Pedapati S C Sri Harsha,Lorraine Brennan,Lieselot Y Hemeryck,Giulia Praticó,Stefania Noerman,Caroline Rombouts,Muyao Xi,Lynn Vanhaecke,Lars O Dragsted,Kati Hanhineva

doi:10.1186/s12263-019-0656-4

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.

Highlights

Meat, including fish and shellfish, represents a valuable constituent of a balanced omnivorous diet
Selection of food groups In order to obtain a good coverage of the different meat sources, meat was subdivided into fresh meat, fish and fish oil, and other aquatic meat, e.g., various shellfish, processed meat products, and offal or organ meats
From the analysis of the reference lists and from the secondary search, another six papers were included in the review, resulting in a total of 26 papers; several relevant papers were dealing with specific meat subgroups and were moved to this heading after reading the full text papers (Additional file 2: Table S3)

Summary

Introduction

Meat, including fish and shellfish, represents a valuable constituent of a balanced omnivorous diet. The importance of meat from a nutritional point of view is related to its high-quality protein content, as it comprises a balanced source of all essential amino acids for muscle maintenance [1]. Minerals and vitamins, such as iron and B12 vitamin, and other micronutrients that are essential for growth and development, are highly bioavailable from meat compared to other sources [2]. Aquatic meat has proven to be one of the major dietary sources of contaminants that are potentially harmful to human health, such as methylmercury and arsenic [18, 19]

Methods

Results

Conclusion