Too many flavonols increases mortality?

[Alex K Chen]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11622-x

this is REALLY relevant for the levels relevant for *us*. I mean, Lustgarten showed that too much https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta-Cryptoxanthin was not great for him..

Edited August 9, 2021 by InquilineKea

[Ron Put]

Curious, thanks.

[tea]

From what I understand, this study is not claiming that the highest flavonol intake increases mortality - just that the reduced risk of mortality plateaus beyond a certain point. I think this is a very understudied point of research. If polyphenols are functioning through hormesis with a bell-curve effect of health benefits, you have to wonder how these effects night interact with the hormetic effects of exercise, antioxidants, and herbal supplements. Someone taking too much could very well be in a worse position than someone living the bare minimum healthy lifestyle and getting 500-1000mg flavanols through chocolate and wine everyday.

 

"Results from our study indicate that for total flavonoid intake, risk of all-cause and CVD mortality was lower for flavonoid consumption until intakes of approximately 500 mg/d, after which higher intakes afforded no added benefit. This threshold was higher, approximately 1000 mg/d for cancer-related mortality. That the thresholds for each of the flavonoid subclasses approximately sum to the threshold for total flavonoid intake is consistent with the idea that all are important and afford added benefit. Interestingly, these threshold levels exist well within daily dietary achievable limits: one cup of tea, one apple, one orange, 100 g of blueberries, and 100 g of broccoli would provide most of the flavonoid subclasses and over 500 mg of total flavonoids. In this population it is likely that tea, chocolate, wine, apples, and pears were the main food sources of flavonoids15."

 

[Clinton]

5 hours ago, tea said:

If polyphenols are functioning through hormesis with a bell-curve effect of health benefits, you have to wonder how these effects night interact with the hormetic effects of exercise, antioxidants, and herbal supplements. Someone taking too much could very well be in a worse position than someone living the bare minimum healthy lifestyle and getting 500-1000mg flavanols through chocolate and wine everyday.

 

 

Absolutely. 

'the dose makes the poison' ... even sulforaphane (imho one of the most interesting hormetic polyphenols out there) caused DNA damage when feed in abundant amounts to pigs - I believe the amount was 600g of broccoli per day.

Everything in moderation ... including moderation ??

Maybe eat less than 600g of Broccoli:

Comparison of the effect of raw and blanched‐frozen broccoli on DNA damage in colonocytes - Lynn - 2015 - Cell Biochemistry and Function - Wiley Online Library

 

Edited August 11, 2021 by Clinton

[Gordo]

Cancer mortality goes flat at about 1000 mg/day but CVD and all-cause mortality seem to be in decline all the way to the end of the graph at least when you look at the midpoint (solid black line).  There is a possibly important note in the study: "In general, the lower risk of mortality associated with higher flavonoid intake tended to be weaker in obese (BMI > 30) participants in comparison to normal/overweight (18.5 > BMI ≤ 30) participants (Fig. 3 and Supplementary Fig. 5)."

This may explain why the deviation widens with increasing flavonoid intake.  You also have to consider the classic issue of sick people skewing the data, for example the obese people eating lots of flavonoids because they are worried about their health, similar to sick people with low BMI (caused by illness) screwing up a lot of the BMI/Mortality studies that have been done (Dean did a great job of documenting this issue).