Urinary N-methylpyridinium and trigonelline as candidate dietary biomarkers of coffee consumption.

In order to validate the in vivo function of putatively healthy molecules in foods, human intervention studies are required. As the subject's compliance concerning intake or abstinence of a given food is considered mandatory to be monitored by biomarkers, the objective was to identify analytical markers for coffee consumption. Urine samples collected from coffee drinkers were compared with those of non-coffee drinkers using hydrophilic liquid interaction chromatography (HILIC)/time-of-flight mass spectrometry-based metabolite profiling. Two urinary molecules, found to be contributing most to the dissimilarities between both groups, were identified as N-methylpyridinium (NMP) and trigonelline and their suitability as coffee-specific biomarkers was validated by means of a coffee intervention study. After the volunteers (five females and four males) consumed a single dose of coffee, morning urine was collected for 10 days while staying abstinent from any coffee. HILIC-MS/MS-stable isotope dilution analysis (SIDA) revealed elevated urinary concentrations of trigonelline and NMP for up to 48 (p=0.001) and 72 h (p=0.002), respectively, after coffee consumption when compared with non-coffee drinkers. Analysis of urinary NMP allows to check for coffee consumption within a period of 3 days and is proposed as a dietary biomarker which might be used as an analytical probe to control compliance in human intervention studies on coffee.