Dietary patterns and depressive symptoms among Japanese men and women

Abstract

Objective: Although several studies have reported associations of depressive state with specific nutrients and foods, few studies examined the association with dietary patterns in adults. We investigated the association between major dietary patterns and depressive symptoms in Japanese. Methods: Subjects were 521 municipal employees (309 men and 212 women), aged 21-67 years, who participated in a health survey at the time of periodic checkup. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale. Dietary patterns were derived by using principal component analysis of the consumption of 52 food and beverage items, which was assessed by a validated brief diet history questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate odds ratios of depressive symptoms (CES-D X16) with adjustment for potential confounding variables. Results: We identified three dietary patterns. A healthy Japanese dietary pattern characterized by high intakes of vegetables, fruit, mushrooms and soy products was associated with fewer depressive symptoms. The multivariate-adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) of having depressive symptoms for the lowest through highest tertiles of the healthy Japanese dietary pattern score were 1.00 (reference), 0.99 (0.62-1.59) and 0.44 (0.25-0.78), respectively (P for trend ¼ 0.006). Other dietary patterns were not appreciably associated with depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that a healthy Japanese dietary pattern may be related to decreased prevalence of depressive status.

The potential role of fruit and vegetables in aspects of psychological well-being: a review of the literature and future directions

“…Thus, it may be the case that some of the small samples were insufficiently powered to detect any association or effect between FV and psychological well-being, and this may serve to explain some of the inconsistency in findings to date. In addition, while a number of studies were conducted in the general population, some examined specific subgroups of the population including elderly people (70) and employees (56,68) . As well as possibly contributing towards the conflicting findings discussed, these studies may be limited in terms of their generalisability to wider populations.…”

“…The most frequently used method of measuring FV intake in studies to date has been the FFQ, although some have used diet histories (68,72,109) , 24-h recalls (108) and diet quality scores (which incorporated FV) (52) , as well as single items on FV consumption (47,64,78,115) . Although FFQ can be a cost-effective means of collecting frequency of dietary intake data from large samples, they are often limited in terms of how much detail they can provide on the quantities of foods consumed (116) .…”

“…Likewise, studies have demonstrated that the adoption of optimal healthy lifestyle behaviours, adherence to nutritional guidelines and good diet quality (all involving eating adequate amounts of FV) is associated with a reduced risk of depression or depressive symptoms (56,65,66) . Moreover, certain dietary patterns characterised by high intakes of FV, have been associated with a decreased prevalence of depression (67,68) . However, despite these positive findings, some studies have failed to produce evidence to support an association between either FV intake (69) or FV-rich dietary patterns (70) and depression.…”

Association of depressive symptoms with dietary habits among Japanese physicians

“…Dietary patterns characterized by high intake of vegetables, fruits and fish were associated with lower incidence of depression [3,8,9]. A lack of specific nutrients such as folic acid [10] and vitamin B [11] reportedly increase the risk of depression.…”

“…Poor lifestyles have been associated with mental disorders among the general population [2], and physicians are no exception. Poor dietary habits have also been associated with depressive symptoms [3]. However, interventions to improve dietary habits may help prevent mental disorders.…”