Biomarkers for fruit and vegetable intake
Because a higher intake of fruit and vegetables has been shown to be associated with lower risks of cancer and cardiovascular disease (1), there is a need for biomarkers of fruit and vegetable intakes. Our data showed that the bioavailability of carotenoids differ and that their bioavailability depends on the nature of the food ingested. Therefore, an adequate biomarker of fruit and vegetable intakes would be a mixture of carotenoids. In addition, these data showed that bioavailability is important when determining the possible contribution of food carotenoids to their antioxidant activity in humans.