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Average flavonoid intake may partly contribute to differences in coronary heart disease mortality across populations, but it does not seem to be an important determinant of cancer mortality.

Flavonoids are strong antioxidants that occur naturally in foods and can inhibit carcinogenesis in rodents. Accurate data on population-wide intakes of flavonoids are not available. Here, using data of the Dutch National Food Consumption Survey 1987-1988, we report the intake of the potentially anticarcinogenic flavonoids quercetin, kaempferol, myricetin, apigenin, and luteolin among 4,112 adults. The flavonoid content of vegetables, fruits, and beverages was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography. In all subjects, average intake of all flavonoids combined was 23 mg/day. The most important flavonoid was the flavonol quercetin (mean intake 16 mg/day). The most important sources of flavonoids were tea (48% of total intake), onions (29%), and apples (7%). Flavonoid intake did not vary between seasons; it was not correlated with total energy intake (r = 0.001), and it was only weakly correlated with the intake of vitamin A (retinol equivalents, r = 0.14), dietary fiber (r = 0.21), and vitamin C (r = 0.26). Our use of new analytic technology suggests that in the past flavonoid intake has been overestimated fivefold. However, on a milligram-per-day basis, the intake of the antioxidant flavonoids still exceeded that of the antioxidants beta-carotene and vitamin E. Thus flavonoids represent an important source of antioxidants in the human diet.