Urinary hippuric acid levels have been usually determined to ' evaluate workers exposed to toluene. Food and drink intake could affect urinary hippuric acid excretion and this study was carried out to investigate what kinds of food and drink would affect urinary hippuric acid excretion.

The subjects were 136 medical school students. Authors measured urinary hippuric acid levels three times from 10 a. m. to noon; before, one hour after and two hours after food or drink-intake, and they were asked not to eat from the previous night (9 p. m) of testing. We selected six diets (bread and coffee, brown sauce noodle, Korean style meal, noodle, pork'galbi and rice and soybean stew and rice), six fruits (apple, grape, orange, pear, persimmon and plum) and five beverages (Alps-D(R), Demisoda(R), Orange juice(R), Pear juice(R) and Pocari sweat(R)). Analysis of urinary hippuric acid was performed by high performance liquid chromatography.

Intake of popular Korean diets, fruits and some drinks didn' t affect urinary hippuric acid excretion. But intake of sodium benzoate-contained Alps-D(R) increased urinary hippuric acid excretion.

For the health examination on workers exposed to toluene, the history of diet and fruit intake can be negligible, but that of beverage intake should be included.