Dietary flavonoid intake is negatively associated with accelerating aging: an American population-based cross-sectional study

Flavonoids are believed to have potential anti-aging effects due to their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. However, the effectiveness of dietary flavonoids and their subclasses in delaying aging has yet to be confirmed. Our study intends to examine relationship between them.

Data from three survey cycles (2007–2008, 2009–2010, and 2017–2018) of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) was used to investigate the relationship between PhenoAgeAccel and dietary flavonoid intake. Weighted linear regression was conducted to evaluate the relationship between dietary flavonoid intake and PhenoAgeAccel, and the dose-response relationship was investigated by limited cubic spline (RCS) analysis. Mixed effects were explored using weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression. Further, the subgroup analyses were also conducted.

A total of 5391 participants were included, after multivariable adjustments, a negative association was found with total dietary flavonoid, flavan-3-ols, flavanone, flavones and flavonols with a β (95% CI) of -0.87 ( -1.61, -0.13), -0.83 (-1.95, -0.08), -1.18 (-1.98, -0.39), -1.64 (-2.52, -0.77) and − 1.18 (-1.98, -0.39) for the higher quintile compared to the lowest quintile. The RCS analysis show a non-linear relationship between flavan-3-ols (P for nonlinear = 0.024), flavanones (P for nonlinear = 0.005), flavones (P for nonlinear < 0.001), flavonols (P for nonlinear < 0.001) and total flavonoid intake (P for nonlinear < 0.001) and PhenoAgeAccel. WQS regression indicated that flavones had the primary effect on the mixture exposures (52.72%). Finally, the subgroup analysis indicated that participants without chronic kidney disease are more likely to benefit from dietary flavanone and flavone intake in mitigating aging, while the benefits of flavanone intake are more significant in participants with a lower body mass index.

Our study suggested that dietary flavonoid intake is negatively associated with accelerating aging in adults of American, and the most influential ones are flavones, flavanones, flavan-3-ols and flavonols.