Nutritional aspects of depression in adolescents - A systematic review

Abstract

Depression is defined as a cluster of specific symptoms with associated impairment affecting 7.4% of the adolescents globally. As part of the systematic review, around 1000 relevant articles published between January 1978 and December 2017 were identified by systematic online search from 6 electronic databases (PubMed, PsycInfo, Science Direct, MEDLINE, Scopus, and Google Scholar) and overall, 56 relevant studies were included in the current review as per the inclusion criteria. Findings highlight the potential importance of the relationship between healthy dietary patterns or quality and positive mental health throughout life span. Various nutrition and dietary compounds have been suggested to be involved in the onset maintenance and severity of depressive symptoms and disorders. Nutritional compounds might modulate depression associated biomarkers. In this context, several healthy foods such as olive oil, fish, nuts, legumes, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables have been inversely associated with the risk of depression and might also improve symptoms. In contrast western dietary patterns including the consumption of sweetened beverages, fried foods, processed meats, baked products have been shown to be associated with an increased risk of depression in longitudinal studies. Diet and nutrition offer key modifiable targets for the prevention of mental disorders. Evidence is steadily growing for the relation between nutrition deficiencies, diet quality and mental health and for the efficacy and use of nutritional supplements to address deficiencies or as augmentation therapies. We advocate recognition of diet and nutrition as crucial factors in prevention and management of mental disorders.

Structural determinants of gender inequality: why they matter for adolescent girls’ sexual and reproductive health

“…Studies from several settings (eg, Brazil, United States, and sub-Saharan Africa) highlight links between food insecurity and sexually transmitted infections, including reduced use of condoms, increased likelihood of engaging in transactional sex, and decreased likelihood of adhering to antiretroviral therapy for HIV 2829. Adolescents experiencing chronic food insecurity and undernutrition are at increased risk of poor mental health,30 which in turn influences risky sexual behaviour 31. Pregnancies in undernourished adolescents pose higher risk of obstetric complications and poor newborn outcomes 32…”

Underweight and Associated Factors Among Teenage Adolescent Girls in Resource-poor Settings: A Cross-sectional Study

“…Several studies have reported the positive association between diet and being underweight with adolescent girl's mental health status. [61][62][63] Nonetheless, we could not find literature that explicitly describes the causes of how mental health status affects the nutritional health status in teenage adolescent girls; It might be argued that the reverse causality be true in our case. In addition, it might also be hypothesized that chronic health conditions such as poor mental health outcomes may lead to household food insecurity; 64 Household food insecurity thus might increase the incidence of being underweight.…”

Red and White Meat Intake in Relation to Mental Disorders in Iranian Adults

“…We could not measure biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative status. In addition, it was not possible to assess body resources of micronutrient, such as vitamin D, B 6 , B 12 , folate, and zinc, which might involve in mental disorders (18,(62)(63)(64). In addition, the study population consisted of a medical university non-academic staff, including crews, employees, and managers.…”