We compared the fructosamine activity in sera from healthy and diabetic subjects with the degree of protein glycation detected by a liquid-chromatographic method. The latter technique measures furosine as a specific product after hydrolysis of epsilon-amino-fructose-lysine. Our results indicate that the fructosamine assay measures the extent of glycation of purified human serum albumin correctly. On the other hand, we found no correlation between the two methods for sera from healthy subjects, although for diabetics' sera the values obtained with both methods were related. However, only about half of the reducing activity (fructosamine) was due to specific nonenzymatic glycation of proteins in healthy subjects and well-controlled diabetics. The remaining unspecific activity varied from serum to serum. It was not reducible with NaBH4 and was independent of the glycation of albumin, which normally accounts for about 80% of glycated serum proteins. The fructosamine assay is therefore of limited specificity for the exact measurement of glycated proteins in serum.