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Flavonoid intake and all-cause mortality

Ivey KL, Hodgson JM, Croft KD, Lewis JR, Prince RL
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2015 101(5):1012-20

Bibliography

PubMed
PMID 25832340
DOI
10.3945/ajcn.113.073106
Funding
Not stated in the reviewed abstract/metadata.
Competing interests
Not stated in the reviewed abstract/metadata.

Study snapshot

DesignProspective cohort study of 1,063 randomly selected women aged over 75 years, assessing total flavonoid intake (estimated via USDA and Phenol-Explorer food composition databases) and 5-year all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality via the Western Australia Data Linkage System.
ModelHuman prospective cohort; older community-dwelling women in Western Australia.
Sample1,063 women aged over 75 years.
InterventionNone; observational — flavonoid intake estimated from dietary data, not administered.
Duration5-year mortality follow-up via data linkage.
Endpoints5-year all-cause mortality; 5-year cardiovascular disease mortality; 5-year cancer mortality

What the study showed, in plain terms

Do people who eat more flavonoids — the broad plant-compound family fisetin belongs to — actually live longer? This study looked for an answer in older Australian women.

Researchers estimated total dietary flavonoid intake in just over 1,000 women aged over 75, using two independent food-composition databases, then tracked who died over the next five years and why.

Women with the highest flavonoid intake had roughly a third the risk of dying from any cause over five years compared with those eating the least — and the same pattern held separately for cardiovascular and cancer deaths, using both databases to estimate intake.

Bottom line: an observational study, so it cannot prove flavonoids caused the lower mortality — but it is genuine human evidence that a flavonoid-rich diet tracks with better survival in older women, independent of any fisetin-specific claim.

Key findings

Women in the highest total flavonoid intake group had roughly 63-64% lower risk of 5-year all-cause mortality than those in the lowest intake group, with similarly reduced cardiovascular and cancer mortality risk, consistent across two independent flavonoid databases (USDA and Phenol-Explorer).

What this study can and cannot tell us

Observational design cannot establish causation and is subject to confounding by overall diet and lifestyle. Measures total flavonoid intake, not fisetin specifically. Limited to older Australian women, a relatively small 5-year follow-up, and a modest number of deaths (129).

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Dr. Khaled Mahmoud, MBBChCritical Care Medicine, Longevity Science & Editorial Direction Dr. Amr Yasser, PhDCardiometabolic, Musculoskeletal, Gut & Bioavailability Dr. Abdulla Mostafa, PhDCellular Senescence, Neurological, Mitochondrial & Brain-Ageing Biology