Inclusion criteria | Exclusion criteria |
---|---|
Populations: humans only |  Populations: those including: |
 Adults 18+ years of age |   Non-human subjects (e.g., in vitro, cell, stem cell, or animal studies) |
 Healthy adults | |
 Adults at an increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) |   Children and adolescents (< 18 years old) |
 Adults who had existing CVD |   Pregnant or lactating women |
 Cancer survivors who were cancer-free at the time of the study |   Adults with prior organ transplantation |
 All elderly unless clear disease (e.g., renal disease) |   Adults with chronic, inflammatory, or autoimmune disease conditions (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, chronic kidney disease) |
  100% smokers | |
  Participants in concurrent cancer or exercise trials | |
  Studies with < 10 subjects | |
Interventions: |  Interventions: |
 Foods, beverages, supplements, or extracts that described or defined flavan-3-ol content either as monomers or polymers |   Did not evaluate a specific intervention (e.g., spice blend, dietary patterns rich in flavan-3-ol food sources) |
  Foods with no or low flavan-3-ol content (e.g., white chocolate, raisins) | |
 Example foods: fruits (e.g., apples, berries, grapes), dark chocolate, cocoa, teas, red wine) | |
  Foods with insufficient data to allow a reasonable estimation of flavan-3-ol content using standardized databases [16,17,18] | |
 Studies must quantify flavan-3-ols consumed or provide sufficient data that allowed estimation of the flavan-3-ol content via standardized databases1 [16,17,18] |   Did not specify the type of wine (e.g., white, red, rice), alcohol, or chocolate (e.g., dark, white, or milk chocolate) in their questionnaires and/or reported results |
Comparators of interest: |  Comparators of interest: |
 Low or no flavan-3-ol content, including placebos |   Studies that did not differentiate flavan-3-ol content (e.g., a study evaluating the effects of alcohol comparing red wine vs. de-alcoholized red wine) |
Outcomes of interest: |  Outcomes of interest: |
 Key clinical and intermediate outcomes (Table 2)2 |   Clinical and intermediate outcomes of interest (Table 2) that do not meet the minimum follow-up requirements |
Study designs of interest: |  Study designs of interest: |
 Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) |   Cross-sectional studies |
 Prospective cohort studies |   Case reports |
  Case series | |
  Retrospective studies | |
  Systematic reviews and meta-analyses3 | |
  Reviews, lectures, opinion articles, news articles, proposed studies (i.e., no results reported) |