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Glucose Measurement in the Presence of Tea Polyphenols

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Abstract

The accuracy of several commonly used methods for glucose measurement in the presence of tea polyphenols (TPLs) was investigated since TPLs (as a representative of bioactive polyphenols) and glucose often co-exist in experiments exploring TPLs’ effect on carbohydrate metabolism. The results from a model system containing only glucose and TPLs showed a TPLs’ amount-dependent variation of measured glucose concentration with a relative error (RE) of 5.0% to 35.5% when a dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) method was used, and for glucose oxidase/peroxidase assay, the results showed a decreased content of glucose with a RE from 56.7% to 102.7%. When a hexose/kinase (HK) method was employed to quantify the glucose content, the accuracy (RE from 0.57% to 4.7%) was comparable to the result obtained by a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method (RE = 0.7–3.0%) that was used as the standard control. Starch digestion experiment further demonstrated the invalidity of DNS method and the accuracy of HK method. Thus, the HK method with its accuracy and convenience is the preferred method for glucose measurement in the presence of TPLs or other bioactive polyphenols.

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The current investigation was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (project no. 21076095).

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Correspondence to Genyi Zhang.

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Xu, H., Leng, X., Wang, M. et al. Glucose Measurement in the Presence of Tea Polyphenols. Food Anal. Methods 5, 1027–1032 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-011-9335-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-011-9335-9

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