Adolescents’ dietary polyphenol intake in relation to serum total antioxidant capacity: the HELENA study

Abstract

We evaluated the association between intake of total polyphenols, polyphenol classes and the 10 most consumed individual polyphenols with serum total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in 749 European adolescents (53% girls; 15% overweight; 12.5–17.5 years-old) from the cross-sectional HELENA study of 2006–2007. Dietary polyphenol intake was calculated from two non-consecutive 24-h recalls matched with the Phenol-Explorer database. Multilevel linear models examined the associations between dietary polyphenols and TAC. Polyphenol intake was rather low (median = 321mg/day; p25 = 158; p75 = 536) and TAC was comparable to other literature findings (median = 1.57 mmol/L; p25 = 1.45; p75 = 1.74). Total polyphenol intake, polyphenol classes and the top 10 compounds were not associated with TAC in a linear, quadratic or cubic way in partially or fully confounder-adjusted models. A direct anti-oxidative effect of dietary polyphenol intake was not observed in European adolescents. Polyphenol biomarkers and additional antioxidant measures are needed in future prospective studies to confirm these results.

Keywords:

• Flavonoid
• youth
• adolescent
• proanthocyanidins
• polyphenols
• Europe

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge all field workers, all participating adolescents and the work of Mieke De Maeyer and the Phenol explorer team for the support in polyphenol estimation. The writing group takes sole responsibility for the content of this article. The European Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

Author contributions

R.W.W. formulated the research question, performed the statistical analysis, prepared the estimation of polyphenols, and wrote a draft of the paper; NM: designed the research and statistical plan, and revised all draft versions. S.D.H. and L.A.M. designed the research, coordinated data collection and reviewed the draft for intellectual content; A.S., V.K., J.A.R. and I.H. helped the linking to their Phenol-Explorer database containing the polyphenol concentrations in food items. Other authors: involved in data collection for the European project. All authors: critically revised the draft, and read and agreed on the final version. None of the authors reported a conflict of interest related to the study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Where authors are identified as personnel of the International Agency for Research on Cancer/World Health Organisation, the authors alone are responsible for the views expressed in this article and they do not necessarily represent the decisions, policy or views of the International Agency for Research on Cancer/World Health Organisation.

Additional information

Funding

The HELENA Study was carried out with the financial support of the European Community Sixth RTD Framework Programme (Contract FOODCT-2005-007034). The first author was sponsored as PhD student by Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP, Indonesia).