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Plasma carotenoid levels in Dutch men and women, and the relation with vegetable and fruit consumption

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 58, pages 1386–1395 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Objective: Fruit and vegetable intake is inversely associated with cancer risk in many epidemiological studies. Accurate assessment of consumption of these foods is difficult, and biomarkers of intake would overcome several drawbacks of currently used dietary assessment methods. Therefore, we investigated the relation between plasma carotenoids and usual vegetable and fruit intake.

Design: Plasma carotenoid concentrations were measured and vegetable, fruit and juice consumption was assessed by a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) in a random sample of 591 Dutch men and women aged 20–59 y from the MORGEN-project, one of the contributions to the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-study.

Results: In this sample of the general Dutch population, in both genders, relative to the other carotenoids, plasma β-cryptoxanthin was the best indicator for fruit intake, and for the sum of vegetable, fruit and juice intake, while lutein concentrations best reflected intake of vegetables, although quartiles of intake were not consistently separated. Since levels of lycopene were not associated with any of the main food groups examined, associations with total carotenoids improved when excluding lycopene, and monotonously increasing plasma levels were seen for intakes of vegetables, of fruits, and of the sum of vegetables, fruits and juices. Several vegetable types and orange/grapefruit juice were associated with plasma levels of one of the carotenoids.

Conclusion: Plasma carotenoids were only crude indicators of vegetable and fruit intake as assessed by a FFQ; β-cryptoxanthin for fruit intake and lutein for vegetable intake. None of the plasma carotenoids could distinguish all four quartiles of vegetables, fruit and/or juice intake.

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Acknowledgements

The work described in this paper was carried out with the financial support of the ‘Europe against Cancer, Programme of the European Commission and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The MORGEN study was financially supported by the Dutch Ministry of Public Health, Welfare and Sports and the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment. We would like to thank Maria van Hemert-Janssen for her excellent technical assistance in collecting and sending the blood samples to Lyon, and Annemieke van der Waal for her help in data management.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Nutrition and Health, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands

    M C J F Jansen, MC Ocké & H B Bueno-de-Mesquita

  2. Department of Nutritional Epidemiology, TNO Nutrition and Food Research, Zeist, The Netherlands

    M C J F Jansen

  3. Unit of Nutrition and Cancer, International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC-WHO), Lyon, Cedex 08, France

    A L Van Kappel & E Riboli

  4. Division of Human Nutrition and Epidemiology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    P Van't Veer

  5. Computerization and Methodological Consultancy Unit, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands

    H C Boshuizen

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Contributions

Guarantors: MCJF Jansen and HB Bueno-de-Mesquita

Contributors: MCJFJ contributed to the design, analysed the data, wrote the report, taking into account the comments and suggestions of the co-authors; ALVK contributed to the design, the carotenoid analyses, and writing of the report; MCO and PvV contributed to the design, data analysis and writing of the report; HCB contributed to the data analysis and writing of the revised version; ER is overall coordinator of the EPIC study, which he designed and implemented in collaboration with R Kaaks and S Slimani; HBB-d-M, the coordinator of the MORGEN-EPIC study, contributed to the design, data analysis, and writing of the revised version of the report.

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Correspondence to H B Bueno-de-Mesquita.

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Jansen, M., Van Kappel, A., Ocké, M. et al. Plasma carotenoid levels in Dutch men and women, and the relation with vegetable and fruit consumption. Eur J Clin Nutr 58, 1386–1395 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601981

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