Mangos associated with favorable nutrient intake, dietary quality
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Mango consumers had greater intake of important nutrients and better dietary quality vs. nonconsumers.
- Eating mangos may reduce the risk for preeclampsia and hypertensive disorders in women of childbearing age.
Older adults and women of childbearing age who consumed mangos had a greater intake of several key nutrients that are recommended for those stages in life, a study found. They also had better diet quality.
Research has previously suggested that the intake of mangos could offer potential health benefits, including a lower risk for CVD.
However, “less information is available on the benefit of these fruits within the [women of childbearing age (WCA)] and older adult populations,” Kristin Fulgoni, a research analyst at consulting firm Nutrition Impact LLC, and Victor L. Fulgoni III, from the same company, wrote in Nutrients.
They noted that both groups were recommended by the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines For Americans to consume at least 1.5 to 2 cups of fruit per day, whereas mangos possess multiple nutrients “of public health concern.”
The researchers evaluated data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to determine the nutrient and food group intake and diet quality of WCA (n = 16,774) and adults aged 60 years and older (n = 18,784) who consumed mangos vs. nonconsumers.
The mean intake of mangos among consumers was 90.1 g for WCA and 91.3 g for older adults over the periods of 1988 to 1994 and 1999 to 2018. Men had a 3.8 g higher intake compared with women.
Fulgoni and Fulgoni III found that, vs. nonconsumers, both WCA and older adults who consumed mangos had a greater than 20% higher intake of fiber and vitamin C, whereas WCA consumers had a 10% higher intake of magnesium, folate and potassium.
The researchers highlighted that the higher intake of fiber and magnesium among WCA suggests that including mangos in a diet could reduce the risk for hypertensive disorders and preeclampsia.
Notably, both subgroups — older adults and WCA who consumed mangos — had lower intakes of beef, poultry and fish, whereas WCA mango consumers had a higher intake of grain and a lower intake of added sugars.
“It is possible that mango consumers are utilizing fruit, and specifically mango, as a source of sweetness in replacement of energy-dense foods with high added sugar content,” Fulgoni and Fulgoni III wrote.
They added that WCA fell more than 25% below the maximum component score for fruit regardless of mango intake, “underlining the need for increased fruit consumption in this population,” the researchers wrote.
Still, the diet quality of WCA and older adult mango consumers was 16% and 13% higher than that of nonconsumers, respectively, based on the Department of Agriculture’s Healthy Eating Index 2020.
“This study suggests incorporating mango into the diet could be beneficial to nutrient intake as well as diet quality in specific life stages of adult Americans,” the researchers concluded. “Identifying individual fruits that help to ward off common health conditions in WCA could give multiple options for this subpopulation who are prone to food aversions.”
Perspective
Back to Top
This study helps show the correlation between reported mango consumption and nutrients of concern for women of childbearing age and older adults, both populations who struggle with getting in enough potassium, folate, magnesium, fiber, calcium vitamin C, etc. all of which can be found in high amounts in mangos. It also showed that those who had a higher mango intake also had a higher intake of other beneficial foods like whole grains and total fruits, and consumed lower levels of saturated fat, sodium, added sugar, beef, etc. which when eating in large amounts can have negative health outcomes.
The findings of this research also were able to show more specific results based on population and nutrients of concern for that respective age group. For women of childbearing age, those who consumed mangos had a higher intake of folate, magnesium, fiber, potassium and vitamin E. When looking at the results of older adults in this study, results suggest that older adult mango consumers are more likely to eat a vegetarian or vegan diet, which is correlated with lower intake of protein, vitamin B12 and a heightened risk for malnutrition. With that said, mango consumers had a higher intake of greens and beans, as well as higher diet quality overall, which correlate with lower levels of CVD, cognitive decline and sarcopenia.
There are some strengths and limitations to this study. A strength is that because of the use of NHANES data, the population studied was large and diverse, allowing these findings to be more generalizable. One main weakness is that this is an observational study, meaning that there may be confounding factors that contribute to the results we see. Socioeconomic status, intake of other beneficial foods/nutrients besides mango and genetics may explain some of the results, and because of this, causality cannot be demonstrated by this study alone.
Because mangos are so high in many nutrients of concern for both older adults and women of childbearing age, the results from this study suggest that incorporating more mangos into the diet could help alleviate nutritional inadequacies like potassium, magnesium, folate, vitamin E, calcium and fiber. Irrespective of mango consumption status, women of childbearing age were more than 25% below the maximum fruit consumption component score, which shows there is a large need to advocate for more fruit consumption for this particular population. Because of this, clinicians should be ready to have conversations with their patients in this age/gender cohort about fruit consumption in the diet and encourage intake, particularly if they are pregnant or looking to become pregnant soon. These findings also suggest it may be beneficial to chat with older adults who eat a vegetarian/vegan diet about protein consumption and nutrients commonly found in high protein foods like vitamin B12, as these nutrients were low.
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts