A new, simple and sensitive pre-column high-performance chromatographic method for the determination of diabetes marker d-glucose, 1,5-anhydro-d-glucitol and related compounds is reported. Sugars (d-glucose, d-galactose, d-mannose, sucrose and arabinose) were derivatized with benzoic acid (BA) at 80 degrees C for 60 min. l-Fucose, fructose, d-lactose, l-rhamnose, arabinose and ascorbic acid were not reacted. Sugar alcohols (xylitol, erythritol, mannitol, sorbitol myo-inositol) were also derivatized with BA at 80 degrees C for 60 min. The fluorescence derivatives were separated on a TSK amide 80 column (4.6 mm i.d. x 250 mm, 5 microm) with acetonitrile-50 mm acetate buffer (pH 5.6; 4:96, v/v) as the mobile phase. The detection wavelength of beizoic acid derivatives was lambda(ex) 275 nm and lambda(em) 315 nm. The detection limits of sugars were 10-80 microg/mL. The calibration graphs were linear up to 10 mg/mL. The relative standard deviations of 500 microg/mL sugars were 7.0-7.3%. The proposed method was compared with the enzymatic photometric glucose analysis method (Glucose B-Test II Wako). The correlation coefficient was 0.83 (n = 20) and y = 0.82x + 5.91, where y and x are concentrations in microg/mL obtained by the proposed pre-column HPLC and enzyme-photometric method, respectively. The detection limits of sugar alcohols were 100-1000 ng/mL. The calibration graphs were linear to 50 microg/mL and relative standard deviations of 10 microg/mL were 7.2-8.2%. The 1,5-AG data by the proposed method was also compared with the enzymatic photometric 1,5-AG analysis method (Rana AG 1,5-AG determination kit, Nihon Kayaku) and good correlation (r = 0.91, n = 20) was also obtained. The proposed method was applied to the simultaneous determination of d-glucose, 1,5-AG and related sugar alcohols in serum from healthy males.