Relationship between dietary flavanone intake and kidney stones in US adults: insight from NHANES

Flavanones represent a significant subgroup of flavonoids and offer various advantages for the human body, such as aiding in metabolic regulation and providing antioxidant properties. The objective of this research was to investigate the relationship between dietary flavanones and the prevalence of kidney stones among adults in the USA. Flavanones, including eriodictyol, hesperetin and naringenin, were sourced from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted between 2007-2010 and 2017-2018, utilising two 24-h dietary recall interviews. The definition of kidney stones was established through a self-administered questionnaire. To evaluate the relationships between dietary flavanones and kidney stones, a variety of statistical methods were utilised, such as multivariable regression analysis, restricted cubic splines (RCS) and subgroup analysis. Data from 9790 participants were included in this analysis, with 9·67 % of them indicating that they had experienced kidney stones. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, it was found that kidney stones exhibited a negative correlation with total flavanones and naringenin, with OR of 0·96 (95 % CI 0·93, 1·00) and 0·89 (95 % CI 0·80, 0·99) for the highest intake group compared with the lowest intake group. The RCS plot revealed a notable negative linear association between the consumption levels of total dietary flavanones and the risk of kidney stones, including naringenin. The results of the subgroup analysis indicated that no significant interactions were observed in each subgroup. Our research indicated that a higher intake of flavanones correlates with a lowered prevalence of kidney stones in adults.