Deoxynivalenol (DON) is a toxic fungal metabolite found on wheat, maize and barley. We previously reported a significant association between the amount of DON in a single 24 h urine sample and the average cereal intake over 7 d for 300 UK adults. In this more detailed analysis of the data, food diary information (n 255) for the day of urine collection (model I), the previous 24 h period (model II) and the day of urine collection plus the previous 24 h combined (model III) were further examined to assess whether the recent intake of cereal correlated more strongly with urinary DON, compared with the longer-term assessment of usual cereal intake from 7 d food diaries (model IV). DON was detected in 254/255 (99.6 %) urine samples (mean 12.0 microg/d; range not detected-66 microg/d). For all the models, total cereal intake was positively associated with urinary DON (P < 0.001) in each model. The goodness of fit (adjusted R2 value) was used to assess how well each model explained the variation in urinary DON. Model I provided a better goodness of fit (adjusted R2 0.22) than model IV (adjusted R2 0.19), whereas model III provided the best fit (adjusted R2 0.27). These data suggest that the inter-individual variation in urinary DON was somewhat better explained by recent cereal intake compared with usual cereal intake assessed over 7 d.