Context: Anthocyanins are phenolic compounds found in berries. They exhibit promising health benefits in humans, but no accurate biomarkers of berry intake have been identified thus far.
Objective: The aim of this systematic review is to propose a biomarker of anthocyanin-rich berry intake in human plasma and urine.
Data sources: PubMed and Cochrane databases were searched from January 2008 to January 2019.
Study selection: Databases were searched for human intervention studies that assessed the presence of anthocyanins in human body fluids using high-throughput techniques. Non-English articles and studies publishing targeted analyses were excluded.
Data extraction: Ten clinical trials, in which 203 phenolic compounds were identified, were included and assessed qualitatively. The following criteria were used to identify biomarkers of berry intake: frequency, plausibility, dose-response, time response, robustness, reliability, stability, analytical performance, and reproducibility. Sensitivity and specificity of potential biomarkers were determined by the receiver operating characteristic curve.
Results: Of the 203 phenolic compounds identified in human samples, the anthocyanin cyanidin-3-glucoside was the molecule found most frequently in urine (58.06%) and plasma (69.49%). Cyanidin-3-glucoside fulfills the essential criterion of plausibility as well as the dose-response, time response, stability, and analytical performance criteria. Its positive predictive value is 74% (P = 0.210) in plasma, which is acceptable, and 61.7% (P = 0.402) in urine.
Conclusions: Current evidence suggests that cyanidin-3-glucoside is a potential biomarker of anthocyanin-rich berry intake in plasma and urine of healthy humans.
Prospero registration number: CRD42018096796.
Keywords: anthocyanins; berry; biomarker; cyanidin-3-glucoside; plasma; urine.
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Life Sciences Institute.