Flavonol and Flavone Intake Linked With Nonfatal MI
Geez!! This was the exact title of the article. For those “title surfers” the first thought would not be a good one!! Flavones are INVERSELY linked with MI!! Anyway, this is, once again, not a tremendous surprise. Flavanoids are substances found in green tea, fruits and veggies.
Epidemiology 2001;12:62-67 Consumption of flavonols and flavones, which are found in tea, vegetables, fruits and wine, is inversely associated with nonfatal myocardial infarction in male smokers. Since the evidence on the relationship between heart disease and flavonols and flavones is mixed, Dr. Tero Hirvonen, of the National Public Health Institute, in Helsinki, Finland, and a multicenter team sought to clarify this relationship by evaluating 25,372 Finnish men enrolled in the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study. The trial was originally designed to see if supplementation with alpha-tocopherol and beta-carotene, either alone or in combination, reduced the risk of lung cancer in male smokers aged 50 to 69. At baseline, all participants completed a dietary questionnaire. After adjustment for age, supplementation group and cardiovascular risk factors, men in the highest quintile had a 23% lower risk of a nonfatal myocardial infarction compared with those in the lowest quintile. “The largest decrease in coronary risk in our data was observed between the lowest and the second-lowest quintiles of flavonol and flavone intake,” the researchers point out. “This pattern may indicate that only very low intake of flavonols and flavones increases the risk of coronary heart disease or that low intake is a surrogate measure for lifestyle risk factors related to the risk of coronary heart disease,” Dr. Hirvonen’s group concludes. In contrast to the risk of nonfatal myocardial infarction, the adjusted risk for coronary death was not significantly associated with intake of flavones and flavonols, according to the report. The findings of this study conflict with the results of most other studies on the subject, which suggest that high intake of flavones and flavonols is associated with a reduced risk of coronary death, but not with a lower risk of nonfatal myocardial infarction. According to the researchers, the discrepancy may result from differences in the study populations. They note that the intake of antioxidants was lower in their Finnish study population than that in the populations of most other studies.