Flavonoids lower ovarian cancer risk

Here's a new article that everyone (ladies in particular) should take note of. It's about daily flavonoid intake and how it can protect us. It's a big study, over 170,000 subjects with 16 years of more of follow-up. It should point out to all of us how important daily intake of key bioactive protector nutrients is. It's something we should think about every day and every bit we take in from whole foods and whole food supplements adds up. So eating all the fresh fruits, particularly those of color, that you can and adding in whole food flavonoid / polyphenol products such as Flavonoid Complex or Tre is just smart. Be well....

Here's the abstract;

Intake of dietary flavonoids and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer
Aedín Cassidy, Tianyi Huang, Megan S Rice, Eric B Rimm, and Shelley S Tworoger, Am J Clin Nutr October 2014 ajcn.088708

Abstract

Background: The impact of different dietary flavonoid subclasses on risk of epithelial ovarian cancer is unclear with limited previous studies that have focused on only a few compounds.

Objective: We prospectively examined associations between habitual flavonoid subclass intake and risk of ovarian cancer.

Design: We followed 171,940 Nurses’ Health Study and Nurses’ Health Study II participants to examine associations between intakes of total flavonoids and their subclasses (flavanones, flavonols, anthocyanins, flavan-3-ols, flavones, and polymeric flavonoids) and risk of ovarian cancer by using Cox proportional hazards models. Intake was calculated from validated food-frequency questionnaires collected every 4 y.

Results: During 16–22 y of follow-up, 723 cases of ovarian cancer were confirmed through medical records. In pooled multivariate-adjusted analyses, total flavonoids were not statistically significantly associated with ovarian cancer risk (HR for the top compared with the bottom quintile: 0.85; 95% CI: 0.66, 1.09; P-trend = 0.17). However, participants in the highest quintiles of flavonol and flavanone intakes had modestly lower risk of ovarian cancer than that of participants in the lowest quintile, although the P-trend was not significant [HRs: 0.76 (95% CI: 0.59, 0.98; P-trend = 0.11) and 0.79 (95% CI: 0.63,1.00; P-trend = 0.26), respectively]. The association for flavanone intake was stronger for serous invasive and poorly differentiated tumors (comparable HR: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.50, 0.92; P-heterogeneity = 0.10, P-trend = 0.07) compared with nonserous and less-aggressive tumors. Intakes of other subclasses were not significantly associated with risk. In food-based analyses used to compare subjects who consumed >1 with ≤1 cup black tea/d, the HR was 0.68 (95% CI: 0.51, 0.90; P < 0.01).

Conclusions: Higher intakes of flavonols and flavanones as well as black tea consumption may be associated with lower risk of ovarian cancer. Additional prospective studies are required to confirm these findings.