Cocoa flavanols

Blending certain ingredients in fruit smoothies can influence whether your body is getting a nutritional boost, finds a new study. Smoothies can be a tasty and convenient way to get the important fruits and vegetables you need for a healthy diet. But is a banana and blueberry smoothie the best combo? Researchers at the University of California, Davis, suggest that blending certain ingredients in smoothies can influence whether your body is getting a nutritional boost. The study, published today in the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal Food and Function, used smoothies to test how various levels of polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme in many fruits and vegetables, affects the levels of flavanols in food to be absorbed by the body. Flavanols are a group of bioactive compounds that are good for your heart and cognitive health and are naturally found in apples, pears, blueberries, blackberries, grapes and cocoa -- common smoothie ingredients. "We sought to understand, on a very practical level, how a common food and food preparation like a banana-based smoothie could affect the availability of flavanols to be absorbed after intake," said lead author Javier Ottaviani, director of the Core Laboratory of Mars Edge, which is part of Mars, Inc., and an adjunct researcher with the UC Davis Department of Nutrition. Slice an apple or peel a banana and the fruit will quickly turn brown. That happens because of polyphenol oxidase, or PPO, an enzyme naturally present in those foods. The browning occurs when the food containing that enzyme is exposed to air, cut or bruised. The researchers wanted to know whether consuming freshly prepared smoothies made with different PPO-containing fruits impacted the amount of flavanols available to the body. Bananas versus berries The researchers had participants drink a smoothie made with banana, which has naturally high PPO activity, and a smoothie made with mixed berries, which have naturally low PPO activity. Participants also took a flavanol capsule as a control. Blood and urine samples were analyzed to measure how much flavanols were present in the body after ingesting the smoothie samples and capsule. The researchers found that those who drank the banana smoothie had 84% lower levels of flavanols in their body compared to the control. "We were really surprised to see how quickly adding a single banana decreased the level of flavanols in the smoothie and the levels of flavanol absorbed in the body," Ottaviani said. "This highlights how food preparation and combinations can affect the absorption of dietary compounds in foods." Last year, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics issued a dietary recommendation, advising people to consume 400 to 600 milligrams of flavanols daily for cardiometabolic health. Ottaviani said for people who are trying to consume those flavanols, they should consider preparing smoothies by combining flavanol-rich fruits like berries with other ingredients that also have a low PPO activity like pineapple, oranges, mango or yogurt. He also said bananas remain a great fruit to be eaten or consumed in smoothies. For those who want to consume smoothies with bananas, or other high PPO activity fruits and vegetables such as beet greens, the suggestion is to not combine them with flavanol-rich fruits such as berries, grapes and cocoa. The findings of this study could spur future research into how other foods are prepared and the effects on flavanols, for example, Ottaviani said tea is a major dietary source of flavanols and depending on how it is prepared, a different amount of flavanols would be available for absorption. "This is certainly an area that deserves more attention in the field of polyphenols and bioactive compounds in general," said Ottaviani. Jodi Ensunsa, Reedmond Fong, Jennifer Kimball and Alan Crozier, all affiliated with the UC Davis Department of Nutrition and researchers affiliated with the UC Davis Department of Internal Medicine, University of Reading, King Saud University and Mars, Inc. contributed to the research. The study was funded by a research grant from Mars, Inc., which collaborates with researchers to study potential benefits of cocoa flavanols for human health.

TUESDAY, May 30, 2023 -- You'll likely lose some of your memory and thinking abilities as you age, but nutrients called flavanols might help thwart that decline, a new study suggests. Not getting enough flavanols -- natural compounds found in fruits, vegetables and even chocolate -- could be driving that age-related memory loss, researchers say. This research is the pinnacle of 15 years of work showing that flavanols seem to benefit the dentate gyrus, an area within the brain’s hippocampus that is critical to memory. “This is the first time we can conclude that flavanols are acting as a nutrient for the aging brain,” said Dr. Scott Small , a professor of neurology and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. “We show in this study, because we had biomarkers of flavanols, that if you're relatively deficient in your flavanols, that seems to be driving your age-related memory decline.” This study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Mars Edge, a subsidiary of the candy company. It’s possible that just as babies need certain nutrients for their developing brains, the aging brain also requires specific nutrients for optimal health, Small said. Now that people live longer, scientists are looking into a series of recommendations of nutrients that are beneficial for the aging body and brain, he noted. “I'd like to believe that this is one of the first studies that is beginning to establish that dietary recommendation,” Small said. Besides berries and dark chocolate, other flavanol-containing foods include apples -- particularly the peels -- grapes, citrus fruits, cocoa and green tea. Good vegetable sources of flavanols are onions, hot peppers, kale, broccoli, rutabagas and spinach, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “I believe that you could consume enough flavanols to prevent yourself from being deficient,” Small said. However, he urged people not to focus on getting this nutrient through chocolate. “There’s no way you can eat enough chocolate to have this benefit. In fact, if you tried, you would die first,” Small said. Prior research in mice found that a particular substance in flavanols called epicatechin enhanced the growth of neurons and blood vessels, improving memory. In humans, a small study linked the dentate gyrus to cognitive, or mental, aging. A larger trial found that flavanols improved memory, having the greatest impact on people who had a poor-quality diet to start. To study this further, researchers randomly assigned 3,500 healthy older adults to receive either a placebo or a daily flavanol supplement in pill form. The supplements contained 500 mg of flavanols, including 80 mg of epicatechins (an amount that's recommended you get from food). Participants answered questions about their diet, and then did web-based activities to assess short-term memory that involved the hippocampus, repeating them after years one, two and three. More than one-third of participants also supplied urine samples, so that researchers could measure a biomarker for dietary flavanol levels. No one was severely flavanol-deficient, although those with mild deficiency benefited from flavanol supplements, researchers said. Researchers also found that memory scores improved just slightly for the entire group taking the supplements, possibly because most already had flavanol-rich diets. Yet those who reported having a poor diet and who had lower baseline levels of flavanols had memory scores improve by an average of about 11% compared to those on the placebo at the end of the first year. Their memory improved 16% from baseline. They sustained the one-year improvement for at least two more years. However, flavanols only improved memory governed by the hippocampus and not other areas of the brain, the researchers noted. Emma Laing is director of dietetics at the University of Georgia and a national spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. She said flavanols are one of several sub-classifications of flavonoids, naturally occurring bioactive compounds linked to human health. “Consuming foods high in flavanols has been shown in research studies to benefit health and reduce the risk for chronic diseases involving the brain, heart and other organs,” said Laing, who was not involved in this study. These nutrients give foods like peaches and apples their bright colors, Laing said. She noted that the role of flavanols on neurological health is an exciting, ongoing area of research with a lot left to learn. “Intentionally adding flavanol-rich foods to your eating pattern is a relatively simple lifestyle change that you could make to support your health. Many foods naturally contain these compounds, so aiming to add one or more servings of flavanol-rich foods per week would be a realistic place to start,” Laing said. Lang also recommended eating nutrient-dense foods, getting enough sleep, exercising, staying well-hydrated and avoiding alcohol as ways to reduce the risk of chronic disease and improve overall health. Because of the study's design, Small said it can't definitively conclude that low dietary intake of flavanols alone causes poor memory, only that there's an association. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . Sources Scott Small, MD, professor, neurology, and director, Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City Emma Laing, PhD, RDN, national spokesperson, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and director of dietetics, University of Georgia, Athens Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , May 29, 2023 Posted May 2023