Catechins and procyanidins in Mediterranean diets

A great many epidemiological studies indicate that a diet rich in flavonoids from vegetables and fruits intake appear to be inversely related to coronary heart disease (CHD) and cancers mortality. Regular moderate consumption of wine can contribute to this phenomenon. Flavonoids in wine and food have been shown to be antioxidant and anti-aggregant in vitro and could indeed help protect against coronary disease. Thus, flavonoids may partly explain the protective effects of the Mediterranean diet, rich in vegetable, fruit and wine against CHD or cancers. The first step in evaluating this hypothesis is to create a catechins-food composition table. Fruits and vegetables as: plum, apples, strawberries, cherry and others berries, lentil, chocolate, beans, contains good amount of catechins and procyanidins with a maximum observed until 49 mg/100 g for plum to 157 mg/100 g for broad bean. Grapes contains catechins and procyanidins in seeds and skins. For red wine, the consumption of 180 mL for which the mean catechin and procyanidin concentration is 557.9 mg/L gives a mean daily intake of 100.4 mg of these compounds. This reasoning applied to each type of wine (red, white and rose) for regular (daily), moderate (180 mL) consumption gives estimations of catechin and procyanidin intake of 100.4 mg for red wines, 2.7 mg for white wines and 3.1 mg for rose wines. Green and black tea provide also catechins, respectively, until 42 and 25 mg/100 mL. A second step consists to determine to what extent each of these foodstuffs contribute to antioxidant flavonoids in the blood. Which type of diet contributes most to plasma concentration of catechin and procyanidins metabolites. If catechins monomers: (+)-catechin and (-)-epicatechin are absorbed with formation of specific metabolites; the metabolism of procyanidins is actually unclear and more research is needed concerning this class of flavonoids. If, as reported, antioxidant flavonoids, especially catechin and procyanidins, have a significant protective effect against CHD red wine and some fruits and vegetables, owing to their flavonoids, may provide the highest protection among all the Mediterranean foodstuffs which have been tested. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.