Metabolomic Markers of Ultra-Processed Food and Incident CKD

Authors

Donghan Su
Jingsha Chen
Shutong Du
Hyunju Kim
Bing Yu
Kari E Wong
Eric Boerwinkle
Casey M Rebholz

Publication Date

3-1-2023

Journal

Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology

Abstract

BACKGROUND: High ultra-processed food consumption is associated with higher risk of CKD. However, there is no biomarker for ultra-processed food, and the mechanism through which ultra-processed food is associated with CKD is not clear. Metabolomics can provide objective biomarkers of ultra-processed food and provide important insights into the mechanisms by which ultra-processed food is associated with risk of incident CKD. Our objective was to identify serum metabolites associated with ultra-processed food consumption and investigate whether ultra-processed food-associated metabolites are prospectively associated with incident CKD.

METHODS: We used data from 3751 Black and White men and women (aged 45-64 years) in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study. Dietary intake was assessed using a semiquantitative 66-item food frequency questionnaire, and ultra-processed food was classified using the NOVA classification system. Multivariable linear regression models were used to identify the association between 359 metabolites and ultra-processed food consumption. Cox proportional hazards models were used to investigate the prospective association of ultra-processed food-associated metabolites with incident CKD.

RESULTS: Twelve metabolites (saccharine, homostachydrine, stachydrine, N2, N2-dimethylguanosine, catechol sulfate, caffeine, 3-methyl-2-oxovalerate, theobromine, docosahexaenoate, glucose, mannose, and bradykinin) were significantly associated with ultra-processed food consumption after controlling for false discovery rate

CONCLUSIONS: We identified 12 serum metabolites associated with ultra-processed food consumption and three of them were positively associated with incident CKD. Mannose and N2, N2-dimethylguanosine are novel markers of CKD that may explain observed associations between ultra-processed food and CKD.

Keywords

Male, Humans, Female, Food, Processed, Mannose, Energy Intake, Biomarkers, Renal Insufficiency, Chronic, Glucose, Diet, CKD, biomarkers, metabolomics, ultra-processed food, epidemiology and outcomes, nutrition

DOI

10.2215/CJN.0000000000000062

PMID

36735499

PMCID

PMC10103271

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

1-13-2023

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Published Open-Access

yes