Unit of Nutrition, Environment and Cancer, Cancer Epidemiology Research Programme, Catalan Institute of Oncology , IDIBELL, Barcelona, Spain.
J Agric Food Chem. 2012 Jul 11;60(27):6648-57. doi: 10.1021/jf204742e. Epub 2012 Feb 22.
Phenolics are a large group of plant compounds that have been associated with protective health effects against several chronic diseases due to their potential antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anticarcinogenic properties. Consequently, in nutritional epidemiology it is essential to make an accurate assessment of phenolic exposure to evaluate their protective activities against human diseases. Self-reported questionnaires and biomarkers are the two main methods used for estimating dietary phenolics. Despite the limitations of self-reported methods, they are still an acceptable and useful measure. Meanwhile, nutritional biomarkers provide an alternative, more accurate measure, but they are expensive, and to date there are few validated biomarkers of phenolic intake. Nowadays, new analytical techniques, using both targeted and untargeted metabolomic approaches, play an important part in the rapid increase in the understanding of phenolic bioavailability and, consequently, have provided new potential biomarkers in small trials. In the near future, these dietary biomarkers should be tested in large epidemiological studies. Furthermore, the use of two independent measures-questionnaires and biomarkers-together provides a more thorough analysis of true phenolic exposure. Indeed, the challenge in the long term is to combine the information from biomarkers and self-reported questionnaires to clarify the relationship between dietary phenolics and disease.
酚类是一大类植物化合物，由于其潜在的抗氧化、抗炎和抗癌特性，它们与预防多种慢性疾病的保护健康作用有关。因此，在营养流行病学中，准确评估酚类物质的暴露情况对于评估它们对人类疾病的保护作用至关重要。自我报告的问卷和生物标志物是评估饮食中酚类物质的两种主要方法。尽管自我报告方法存在局限性，但它们仍然是一种可接受和有用的测量方法。同时，营养生物标志物提供了一种替代的、更准确的测量方法，但它们成本高昂，迄今为止，酚类摄入量的验证生物标志物很少。如今，新的分析技术，包括靶向和非靶向代谢组学方法，在快速提高对酚类生物利用度的理解方面发挥了重要作用，并在小型试验中提供了新的潜在生物标志物。在不久的将来，这些饮食生物标志物应该在大型流行病学研究中进行测试。此外，同时使用两种独立的测量方法——问卷和生物标志物——可以更全面地分析真实的酚类暴露情况。事实上，长期的挑战是将生物标志物和自我报告问卷的信息结合起来，以阐明饮食中酚类物质与疾病之间的关系。
