Associating acrylamide internal exposure with dietary pattern and health risk in the general population of Taiwan

We determined the urinary levels of acrylamide (AA) metabolites of the general Taiwanese population, explore the association between AA internal exposure and dietary intake frequency, and assess the health risk. Urine samples and dietary questionnaires were collected from the subjects of the Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan. AA metabolite [N-acetyl-S-(propionamide)-cysteine (AAMA)] concentrations were analyzed by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-ToF-MS). Multiple regression was used to examine associations between AA metabolite levels and dietary patterns. A total of 706 subjects were studied. We found that per increase in weekly frequency of sweetened beverages in the 6–11-years group (β = 0.322, p = 0.018) and oily snacks intakes in the 12–18-years group (β = 0.335, p = 0.012) will increase 10^β of urinary AAMA concentrations. Assuming that 50% of the AA intake is excreted as urinary AAMA, the Monte Carlo simulation showed that 1.75–19.48% among all age groups have exceeded the reference dose of 2 μg/kg-body weight/day.