Habitual dietary intake of flavonoids and all-cause and cause-specific mortality: Golestan cohort study

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Flavonoids are the most important group of polyphenols with well-known beneficial effects on health. However; the association of intake of total flavonoid or their subclasses with all-cause or cause-specific mortality is not fully understood. The present study aims to evaluate the association between intake of total flavonoid, flavonoid subclasses, and total and cause-specific mortality in a developing country. METHODS: A total number of 49,173 participants from the Golestan cohort study, who completed a validated food frequency questionnaire at recruitment, were followed from 2004 till 2018. Phenol-Explorer database was applied to estimate dietary intakes of total flavonoid and different flavonoid subclasses. Associations were examined using adjusted Cox proportional hazards models. RESULTS: During a mean follow-up of 10.63 years, 5104 deaths were reported. After adjusting for several potential confounders, the hazard ratios (HRs) of all-cause mortality for the highest versus the lowest quintile of dietary flavanones, flavones, isoflavonoids, and dihydrochalcones were 0.81 (95% confidence interval = 0.73–0.89), 0.83(0.76–0.92), 0.88(0.80–0.96) and 0.83(0.77–0.90), respectively. However, there was no association between total flavonoid intake or other flavonoid subclasses with all-cause mortality. In cause-specific mortality analyses, flavanones and flavones intakes were inversely associated with CVD mortality [HRs: 0.86(0.73–1.00) and 0.85(0.72–1.00)] and isoflavonoids and dihydrochalcones were the only flavonoid subclasses that showed a protective association against cancer mortality [HR: 0.82(0.68–0.98)]. CONCLUSION: The results of our study suggest that certain subclasses of flavonoids can reduce all-cause mortality and mortality rate from CVD and cancer.