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Discerning animal-sourced food in diet using isotope analysis of human scalp hair and fingernails

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Abstract

Purpose

Diet-related diseases are advancing as the leading cause of death globally. As self-reporting of diet by patients can be associated with errors, stable isotopes of human tissues can be used to diagnose diseases, understand physiology, and detect change in diet. This study investigates the effect of type and amount of food on the nitrogen and carbon concentration (Nconc and Cconc) and isotopic composition (δ15N and δ13C) in human scalp hair and fingernails.

Methods

A total of 100 residents participated in the study whereas only 74 individuals provided complete diet history. Sixty-six food items majorly available to them were also collected. The Nconc, Cconc, δ15N and δ13C values of human hair, nails and food items were determined.

Results

The Nconc, Cconc, δ15N and δ13C values between plant-sourced and animal-sourced food items, as well as human hair and nail tissue were significantly different (p < 0.05). The δ15N value of human tissues was distinct between lacto-vegetarians and omnivores by 0.9‰. The δ15N and δ13C values of human tissues increased by 0.4–0.5‰ with every 5% increase in the consumption of animal protein.

Conclusions

The study helps to demarcate lacto-vegetarians from omnivores, and estimate the percentage of animal protein in diet based on the dual isotope values of human tissues. It also acts as a reference to determine isotopic composition of hair tissue provided the isotope value of nail tissue is known and vice versa.

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Data availability

The Research Data described in the manuscript is freely available in the Table 1 in manuscript, and Supplementary Table 1 in Supporting Information. Any other data described in the manuscript, code book, and analytic code will be made available upon request by the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

GA is grateful to University Grants Commission (UGC) for PhD scholarship (Award No. 190520711319; 08-01-2020), Manoj Jakhar for his assistance in sample collection, Mahesh Ghosh for instrument support, IISER-K Mess Manager for providing data from server, Rohan Agrawal for help in computational analysis and the study participants for providing their samples for the study. PS acknowledges the support from Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) under Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India (Project No. EMR/2017/003673) for the IRMS instrument procurement.

Funding

The IRMS instrument procurement was supported by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) under Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India (Project No. EMR/2017/003673). GA is supported by PhD fellowship programme of University Grants Commission (UGC) (Award No.: 190520711319; 08-01-2020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, Mohanpur, 741246, India

    Gunjan Agrawal & Prasanta Sanyal

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  1. Gunjan Agrawal
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  2. Prasanta Sanyal
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GA: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Visualization, Writing—Original Draft PS: Resources, Writing—Review and Editing, Supervision.

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Correspondence to Gunjan Agrawal.

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The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Ethical standards

The human tissue sample collection protocol was approved by the Institutional Ethical Committee (IISER/IEC/2022/09) and the samples have therefore been collected by adherence to the approved ethical standards. Informed consent after explaining the research was taken from the study participants prior to human tissue collection.

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Agrawal, G., Sanyal, P. Discerning animal-sourced food in diet using isotope analysis of human scalp hair and fingernails. Eur J Nutr 63, 409–423 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-023-03273-y

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