Are you eating ultra-processed foods?New study links diet to surge in depression rates

Previous studies on the global burden of illness have shown that depressive disorders are among the most common psychiatric disorders, with the highest overall burden. One potential risk factor for depression that can be modified is poor diet.

In a recent study published in Affective Disorder Journalresearchers are investigating the association between high consumption of ultra-processed foods and psychological distress.

study: The Melbourne Joint Cohort Study found that high consumption of ultra-processed foods was associated with increased psychological distress as an indicator of depression in adults. Image credit: Ekaterina Markelova / Shutterstock.com

About research

The current study is registered in the Open Science Framework (OSF) registry and complies with the Statement and Checklist of Enhanced Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE). Between 1990 and 1994, more than 41,000 people between the ages of 27 and 76 were registered from Melbourne. Approximately 25,000 of these individuals were identified as female, with almost 99% of the study cohort aged between 40 and 69 years.

More immigrants from Southern Europe participated in the study to increase the diversity of dietary and lifestyle experiences. The study cohort had previously completed questionnaires about diet and psychological distress at baseline and at the end of the study.

Of the 41,513 people originally recruited for this study, 28,240 attended the second follow-up visit. Of these, 24,674 completed both the dietary intake assessment at baseline and the psychological distress questionnaire at his second follow-up.

Baseline dietary data were collected from participants attending face-to-face clinics. Study participants self-completed a 121-item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) to assess their dietary intake. In addition, the researchers converted reported intake frequencies using food portions by gender into grams and multiplied by the daily frequency to find super-processed foods in terms of both energy and weight. The average daily consumption of food was calculated.

The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) was used to measure psychological distress during follow-up. The K10 measures general psychological distress, and elevated K10 scores indicate the presence of typical psychiatric disorders.

result

A total of 13,876 women and 9,423 men were included in the final analysis. Those who ate the most ultra-processed foods were more likely to be born in New Zealand or Australia and live alone. These people were also less likely to report having higher education, being married or in a de facto relationship, being the most disadvantaged, and having high levels of physical activity. became. A higher intake of ultra-processed foods leads to a lower intake of protein, fiber and saturated fat, as well as a lower total energy and vegetable and fruit intake.

Model 1 found that people who consumed the highest quartile of energy-adjusted ultraprocessed foods were 1.14 times more likely to experience increased emotional distress than those who consumed the lowest quartile. got it. In the main multivariate analysis, he was 1.23 times more likely to have increased psychological distress after adjusting for potential covariates.

The fourth highest quartile of energy-adjusted ultraprocessed food consumption showed significant differences compared to the reference quartile for all models. A threshold effect was observed, indicating that the association between ultra-processed food consumption and increased psychological distress occurred only in individuals with relatively high ultra-processed food intake.

A constrained cubic spline assessment was used to examine the relationship between ultra-processed food consumption and psychological distress. To this end, higher consumption of ultra-processed foods was associated with an increased risk of increased psychological distress. Additionally, participants in the top quartile were significantly more likely to report psychological distress compared to participants in the first three quartiles.

Conclusion

Consumption of ultra-processed foods was directly associated with increased psychological distress at subsequent follow-up visits. This association was only observed in individuals who consumed significant amounts of ultra-processed foods, especially those in the upper quartile.

Further research is needed to identify the downsides of ultra-processed foods and to develop effective nutritional and public health approaches to improve mental health.