The intake of carotenoids in Denmark

To estimate the intake of carotenoids in the Danish population Danish fruit s and vegetables were screened with an HPLC method consisting of extraction with ethanol:tetrahydrofuran, separation by reversed phase HPLC with the m obile phase acetonitril:methanol:dichlormethan, triethylamin, BHT and detec tion at 450 nm. Food intakes were estimated by the national dietary surveys (1995) from 7 days' food registration (n = 1837 adults), which allows the whole diet to be described by the mean intake and intake distribution of 20 7 raw or semiprepared foods. By multiplication with the mean content in the foods the mean intake and intake distribution of the carotenoids were calc ulated. Carrots and tomatoes have both high contents of carotenoids (8,450 mu g/100 g alpha- + beta-carotene and 4,790 mu g/100 g lycopene, respective ly) and high intakes (19 and 15 g/day, respectively) and were responsible f or 47% and 32%, respectively, of the mean intake of carotenoids of 4.8 mg/d ay A median value of 4.1 mg/day was found indicating skewed intake distribu tions. The difference between men and women was 0.4 mg/day (p < 0.0065). On ly four carotenoids, alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lutein and lycopene, co ntributed significantly to the intake. Women had a 6 g/day higher intake of carrots than men (p < 0.0001), which explains the 0.4 mg/day difference in the intake between men and women, and the 25th percentile was well over ze ro (5.0 g/day for men and 5.9 g/day for women) indicating that almost every body consumed at least some carrots.