Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BHNRC) » Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center » Nutrient Data Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #275718
Title: USDA develops a database for flavonoids to assess dietary intakes

Author
item Bhagwat, Seema
item Haytowitz, David
item WASSWA-KINTU, SHIRLEY - Johns Hopkins School Of Public Health
item HOLDEN, JOANNE - Consultant

Submitted to: Procedia Food Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/27/2013
Publication Date: 5/29/2013
Citation: Bhagwat, S.A., Haytowitz, D.B., Wasswa-Kintu, S., Holden, J. 2013. USDA develops a database for flavonoids to assess dietary intakes. Procedia Food Science. 2:81-86.

Interpretive Summary: Flavonoids are present in fruits, vegetables and a few grains. They are produced by plants as secondary metabolites and are considered to have many beneficial properties such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, and free radical scavenging. Scientists are interested in associating flavonoid intakes and health benefits in the human population. Many knowledge gaps exist in the study of flavonoids, including the lack of a comprehensive food composition database, making assessment of population intake of flavonoids difficult. Scientists at the Nutrient Data Laboratory (NDL) and the Food Surveys Research Group (FSRG), USDA planned a study of the intakes of flavonoids by participants in the What We Eat In America (WWEIA) component of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007-08 with support from scientists in the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH, DHHS. The NDL scientists have released “USDA Database for the Flavonoids Content of Selected Foods, Release 3.1” (FDB 3.1) for 500 foods and “USDA Database for Isoflavone Content of Selected Foods, Release 2” (IDB 2) for 550 foods in 2012 and 2008 respectively. These databases contain values for 30 predominant dietary flavonoid compounds in six subclasses of flavonoids. Every food in the database does not have values for all the 30 compounds. Therefore analytical values from these databases were used as the foundation to estimate values for unavailable compounds and for preparing complete profiles of 30 compounds for a subset of approximately 2900 foods in the National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (SR). The FSRG will use this expanded flavonoids database for the development of the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS), 4.1 for over 7000 foods and to estimate flavonoid intakes in the U.S. population. The collaborators, ODS and NCI, will use the intake estimates to assess the impact of these bioactive components on human health.

Technical Abstract: The beneficial health effects of dietary flavonoids continue to interest the scientific community in associating the flavonoid intakes and certain chronic diseases. Scientists at the Nutrient Data Laboratory (NDL) and the Food Surveys Research Group (FSRG), USDA planned a study of the intakes of flavonoids by participants in the What We Eat In America, component of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007-08 with support from scientists in the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS), National Institutes of Health (NIH),Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH, DHHS. Many knowledge gaps exist in the study of flavonoids, including the lack of a comprehensive food composition database, making assessment of population intake of flavonoids difficult. The first step in this project was to expand the “USDA Database for the Flavonoid Content of Selected Foods, Release 3.1”, 2012 (FDB 3.1) and the “USDA Database for the Isoflavone Content of Selected Foods, Release 2”, 2008, (IDB 2) to provide values for the subset of approximately 2,900 foods in the National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (SR) used in the development of the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS), 4.1. These two databases include predominant monomeric dietary flavonoids in the six subclasses of flavonoids – flavonols, flavones, flavanones, flavan 3-ols, anthocyanidins and isoflavones and values for 30 flavonoid compounds. Using the values for about 500 food items in FDB3.1 and over 550 food items in IDB 2 as the foundation and using estimation techniques established by the NDL, flavonoid profiles for approximately 2900 foods in the SR subset were completed for the selected 30 flavonoid compounds. The NDL provided this data set to the FSRG to develop flavonoid values for over 7,000 foods in FNDDS 4.1, which will be used to estimate flavonoid intakes of the U.S. population. The collaborators, ODS and NCI, will use the intake estimates to assess the impact of these bioactive components on human health.