Expansion of an Australian food composition database to estimate polyphenol intakes

Research has demonstrated that a higher intake of polyphenols is associated with a reduced risk of several adverse health outcomes. However, accurately estimating polyphenol intake presents challenges due to methodological heterogeneity in polyphenol assessment. Further, there is no comprehensive Australian polyphenol food composition database covering all polyphenol classes and subclasses. This manuscript presents a pragmatic approach to addressing these gaps with the aim of presenting a polyphenol database specific to the Australian population and providing an overview of the methods used to develop the database. To achieve this aim, all food items listed in the 2011–13 Australian Food and Nutrient Database (AUSNUT 2011–13) were coded for polyphenols using Phenol-Explorer. The expanded AUSNUT 2011–13 includes content data (including zero values) for total polyphenols, polyphenol classes (flavonoids, phenolic acids, lignans, stilbenes, and other polyphenols), polyphenol subclasses [flavonoid (N = 9), phenolic acid (N = 4), and other polyphenol subclasses (N = 14)], as well as individual polyphenol compounds (N = 495) and proanthocyanidin polymer categories (N = 5) in 5740 food items. Through the harmonisation of Phenol-Explorer data, the expanded database partially manages methodological heterogeneity to facilitate better comparability across future Australian studies that use the AUSNUT 2011–13 food composition data.