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A review of factors that affect carotenoid concentrations in human plasma: differences between Mediterranean and Northern diets

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 72, pages 18–25 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Carotenoids are naturally occurring pigments of autotroph organisms that have been related to many health benefits and this is not only because some of them are precursors of vitamin A. Individual or whole carotenoid consumption has been associated with a lower risk of developing cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases among others. However, the blood levels of carotenoids vary largely from person to person due to different factors. Diet is the most important one because of the dietary patterns that different populations follow, the time of the year of consumption or the personal preferences. Nevertheless, the intrinsic host factors such as the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion genetic polymorphisms, the volume of distribution and the person’s microbiota and others such as carotenoid interactions are also inducing this so called inter-individual variability. Besides, culinary methods and processing produce changes in the foods that directly affect carotenoid content and hence their blood profile. Different types of studies have been performed to understand the between-subject variation of the carotenoid profile in human plasma. This research is focused on this matter as levels of carotenoids in human plasma could be useful for the prediction of some diseases. The Mediterranean diet is probably the most carotenoid rich diet stemming from its high proportion of fruits and vegetables. Its differences with other diets and the effect on the carotenoid blood profile of the consumers are currently a very interesting topic of study.

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Funding

This article is published as part of a supplement sponsored by the Mediterranean Diet Foundation and the Diputació de Barcelona. This work was supported by the CICYT (AGL2016-79113-R), and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) (CIBEROBN) from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MEIC) (AEI/FEDER, UE) and Generalitat de Catalunya (GC) (2014 SGR 773). Anna Tresserra-Rimbau was supported by a Juan de la Cierva Formación postdoctoral fellowship from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition, Food Sciences, and Gastronomy, School of Pharmacy and Food Sciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    María Marhuenda-Muñoz, Sara Hurtado-Barroso & Rosa Maria Lamuela-Raventós

  2. Biomedical Research Networking Centres in Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition (CIBEROBN), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain

    María Marhuenda-Muñoz, Sara Hurtado-Barroso & Rosa Maria Lamuela-Raventós

  3. Nutrition and Food Safety Research Institute (INSA-UB), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    María Marhuenda-Muñoz, Sara Hurtado-Barroso, Anna Tresserra-Rimbau & Rosa Maria Lamuela-Raventós

  4. Human Nutrition Unit, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Pere Virgili Health Research Center, University Hospital of Sant Joan de Reus, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Reus, Spain

    Anna Tresserra-Rimbau

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  1. María Marhuenda-Muñoz
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Correspondence to Rosa Maria Lamuela-Raventós.

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AT-R received grant funding from The European Foundation for Alcohol Research (ERAB); RLR received lecture fees from ERAB, Beer and Health o Centro de Información Cerveza y Salud (CICS) and grant support from the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitivity, Catalonia Government. The remaining authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Marhuenda-Muñoz, M., Hurtado-Barroso, S., Tresserra-Rimbau, A. et al. A review of factors that affect carotenoid concentrations in human plasma: differences between Mediterranean and Northern diets. Eur J Clin Nutr 72 (Suppl 1), 18–25 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-018-0305-9

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