Longitudinal diet quality is not associated with depressive symptoms in a cohort of middle-aged Australian women

Abstract

There is increasing evidence for the role of nutrition in the prevention of depression. This study aims to describe changes in diet quality over 12 years among participants in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health in relation to changes in depressive symptoms. Women born between 1946 and 1951 were followed-up for 12 years (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013). Dietary intake was assessed using the Dietary Questionnaire for Epidemiological Studies (version 2) in 2001, 2007 and every 2-3 years after that until 2013. Diet quality was summarised using the Australian Recommended Food Score (ARFS). Depressive symptoms were measured using the ten-item Centre for Epidemiologic Depression Scale at every 2-3-year intervals during [2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010][2011][2012][2013]. Linear mixed models were used to examine trends in diet quality and its sub-components. The same model including time-varying covariates was used to examine associations between diet quality and depressive symptoms adjusting for confounders. Sensitivity analyses were carried out using the Mediterranean dietary pattern (MDP) index to assess diet quality. Minimal changes in overall diet quality and its sub-components over 12 years were observed. There was a significant association between baseline diet quality and depression (β = − 0·24, P = 0·001), but this was lost when time-varying covariates were added (β = − 0·04, P = 0·10). Sensitivity analyses showed similar performance for both ARFS and MDP in predicting depressive symptoms. In conclusion, initial associations seen when using baseline measures of diet quality and depressive symptoms disappear when using methods that handle time-varying covariates, suggesting that previous studies indicating a relationship between diet and depression may have been affected by residual confounding.

Mediterranean diet adherence is related to reduced probability of prodromal Parkinson's disease

“…Similarly, our results on the association of MeDi with lower likelihood of depression are in accord with most, but not all, previous evidence. [50][51][52] We detected no association between MeDi adherence and motor exam. It could be that motor features of PD (even subtle ones) are exhibited in the latter stage of pPD, that is, may be less present in the earlier prediagnostic/precursor stage, where other nonmotor markers are more prevalent.…”

Diet quality and depression risk: A systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies

“…A difficulty in establishing the diet-depression link however is that not all findings have been consistently replicated (Jacka, Cherbuin, Anstey, & Butterworth 2014;Lai et al, 2016). Complicating the issue further is that the larger part of the evidence comes from cross-sectional studies (Khalid, Williams, & Reynolds 2017;O'Neil et al, 2014).…”

The Association between Dietary Quality and Dietary Guideline Adherence with Mental Health Outcomes in Adults: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

“…Inconsistent data regarding the relationship between dietary patterns and dietary quality with risk of adverse mental health outcomes exists [10,11,12,13,14]. Moreover two recent systematic reviews have provided limited and conflicting evidence supporting the association between dietary patterns and depression in adults [15,16].…”