Urine samples before dinner are preferable when studying changes in endogenous nitrate production under uncontrolled dietary conditions.

Changes in nitric oxide production result in changes in nitrate excretion, but these are difficult to detect if the daily intake of nitrate varies substantially. Instead of using a sample of the combined urine produced in 24 h for analysis, we studied the urine nitrate concentration in urine discharge at various times of the day. This was done with urine samples from each of seven men after a high dietary nitrate intake, followed by a low dietary intake 24 h later. The lowest variability in nitrate concentration was found in the samples before dinner (late afternoon) (511 +/- 201 (S.D.) mumol/l). However, the pre-dinner samples after a day with a nitrate-rich meal had still a 40% increased nitrate concentration (623 +/- 147 mumol/l), when compared with samples before the high nitrate diet (440 +/- 90 mumol/l; P < 0.05). This effect disappeared on the second day after the high nitrate meal (476 +/- 108 mumol/l). Similar results were found when using the nitrate/creatinine ratio. We conclude that urine samples taken before nitrate rich meals are the most reliable samples for estimating (changes in) endogenous nitrate production.