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Intervention study with a high or low antioxidant capacity diet: effects on circulating β-carotene

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 63, pages 1220–1225 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Background and objectives:

A cross-sectional observation suggests that total antioxidant capacity (TAC) of the diet positively affects plasma concentrations of β-carotene independent of β-carotene intake. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of two dietary strategies, designed to be comparable in fruits, vegetables, fibre, alcohol and β-carotene intake but substantially different in their TAC, on changes in antioxidant intake and antioxidant status, and in particular in circulating β-carotene concentrations.

Subjects:

A randomized cross-over intervention trial involving 33 healthy participants and consisting of two 14-day dietary periods (high TAC diet, HT; low TAC diet, LT) with a 14-day washout in between was conducted.

Results:

Energy, macronutrient, dietary fibre, alcohol and β-carotene intake was not significantly different between LT and HT, whereas intake of other carotenoids and dietary TAC was significantly higher in the HT than in the LT (P<0.001). Circulating carotenoids (with the exception of α-carotene, which followed an inverse trend) and α-tocopherol decreased significantly during the LT and increased during the HT period. Among these, β-carotene almost doubled its concentration in plasma after the HT diet.

Conclusions:

The increase in circulating β-carotene along with the increase in dietary TAC suggests that plasma β-carotene could be a marker of TAC intake rather than of β-carotene intake itself. This may explain, in part, why β-carotene supplementation alone has shown no benefit in chronic disease prevention and adds to a putative beneficial role of high dietary TAC diets, which merits further investigation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the COFIN 2004 project from the Italian Ministry of University and Research and by the EC project ‘PIPS—Personalised Information Platform for Life & Health Services’ (IST-2004-507019).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Health, Human Nutrition Unit, University of Parma, Parma, Italy

    D Del Rio, N Pellegrini, M A Bianchi & F Scazzina

  2. Department of Internal Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Parma, Parma, Italy

    S Valtueña, D Ardigò, L Franzini, I Zavaroni & F Brighenti

  3. Medicine Division, Core Lab, Diabetology, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Disease Unit, Hospital San Raffaele, Milan, Italy

    L Monti

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  1. D Del Rio
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Correspondence to N Pellegrini.

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Del Rio, D., Valtueña, S., Pellegrini, N. et al. Intervention study with a high or low antioxidant capacity diet: effects on circulating β-carotene. Eur J Clin Nutr 63, 1220–1225 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2009.46

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