The effectiveness of precision supplements on depression symptoms in a US population

Abstract

Nutrition plays a pivotal role in depression, but dietary interventions are usually not personalized and do not consider patients microbial and human molecular functions. This preliminary study evaluated the effectiveness of precision supplements (PS) on depression symptoms as part of a personalized nutrition subscription plan that accounts for the gene expression activity of the microbiome and the human host. People with depression, 86 taking PS and 45 controls responded to the patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) at two time points an average of ~6 months apart. Categorical changes were evaluated using the PHQ-9 score system, and clinically significant categorical differences were observed between the two groups (effect size = 0.48; p <0.001). The difference in differences was calculated using multiple group propensity score weighting adjusting for age, sex, BMI, and physical activity, and the PHQ-9 score decreased by ~4 points (~29%) for the intervention group (t0: 13.75+-3.80, t1: 9.78+-6.42) vs Controls (t0: 14.07+-3.64, t1: 13.59 +-6.65). Thus, precision supplement use over ~6 months significantly reduced depression symptoms, with 69.8% of the individuals in the intervention group improving their category to no/low depression vs. 15.6% in the control group.