Prebiotic Low Sugar Chocolate Dairy Desserts: Physical and Optical Characteristics and Performance of PARAFAC and PCA Preference Map.

The addition of prebiotic and sweeteners in chocolate dairy desserts opens up new opportunities to develop dairy desserts that besides having a lower calorie intake still has functional properties. In this study, prebiotic low sugar dairy desserts were evaluated by 120 consumers using a 9-point hedonic scale, in relation to the attributes of appearance, aroma, flavor, texture, and overall liking. Internal preference map using parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) and principal component analysis (PCA) was performed using the consumer data. In addition, physical (texture profile) and optical (instrumental color) analyses were also performed. Prebiotic dairy desserts containing sucrose and sucralose were equally liked by the consumers. These samples were characterized by firmness and gumminess, which can be considered drivers of liking by the consumers. Optimization of the prebiotic low sugar dessert formulation should take in account the choice of ingredients that contribute in a positive manner for these parameters. PARAFAC allowed the extraction of more relevant information in relation to PCA, demonstrating that consumer acceptance analysis can be evaluated by simultaneously considering several attributes. Multiple factor analysis reported Rv value of 0.964, suggesting excellent concordance for both methods.

Vanilmandelic acid and homovanillic acid levels in patients with neural crest tumor: 24-hour urine collection versus random sample.

Neuroblastoma is the most common solid tumor in childhood and is the most frequent neural crest tumor (NCT). More than 90% of the patients excrete high levels of vanilmandelic acid (VMA) and homovanillic acid (HVA) in the urine. Original biochemical methods for measuring these two metabolites of catecholamines employed a collection of urine for 24 hours to avoid errors related to circadian cycle variations. More recently, attempts have been made to replace the 24-hour collections by random samples (RSs). This has practical advantages particularly for young children. The objective of this study is to assess whether urinary VMA related to urinary creatinine levels can be determined reliably by the method of Pisano et al. from RSs in patients with NCT. The determination of the consumption of VMA in urine stored for prolonged periods of time was also studied. We found a good correlation between the values of metabolites of catecholamines in RSs compared with 24-hour urine collections. There was consumption of VMA in urine samples after storage. We conclude that determination of VMA in RSs of urine by Pisano's method may identify NCT production of catecholamines and that the consumption of these catecholamines is an important factor to consider in the interpretation of values obtained with stored urine specimens.