Effects of milk supplementation for one week on the urine proteome in rats

Abstract

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com physiological or pathophysiological process [1]. Because urine is not subject to the control of homeostatic mechanisms, its composition undergoes many changes; thus, urine may represent a good source of biomarkers. Urinary analysis has been used in a variety of disease biomarker studies [2-5]. Studies have shown that changes caused by anticoagulants and short diet interventions can be more easily detected in urine than blood [6,7]. However, urine is sensitive to a number of factors; many physiological parameters, including age, gender, lifestyle, and hormones, can cause changes to urine [8-12]. Changes caused by these factors may interfere with disease-related changes in disease biomarker studies. Whether identified biomarkers directly relate to a disease itself or to confounding factors may be unclear. The effects of physiological factors are more significant in the early stages of disease. Changes in urine caused by early-stage disease are relatively minor, and these changes are more likely to be interfered. Therefore, assessing and sorting out the effects of confounding factors on urine is essential to the discovery of disease markers that are more specific and reliable.