Diet quality and depressive symptoms among workers

Abstract

Background & aim: It is not clear whether diet quality influences mental health. We prospectively investigated the association of adherence to the Japanese dietary guidelines with depressive symptoms in a Japanese working population.

Methods: Participants were 909 workers (aged 19-68 years) without depressive symptoms at baseline who completed both baseline and 3-year follow-up surveys. Dietary intake was assessed with a validated self-administered diet history questionnaire. Adherence to the Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top was measured based on consumption of the recommended number of servings of grains, vegetables, fish and meat, milk, and fruits, as well as total energy intake and energy from snacks and alcoholic beverages. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale. Multiple logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratio of depressive symptoms according to tertile of adherence score, with adjustment for covariates.

Results: At the time of the 3-year follow-up survey, 153 (16.8%) workers were newly identified as having depressive symptoms (CES-D score of ≥16). The adherence score was not associated with depressive symptoms after 3 years. The multivariable-adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) for the lowest through highest tertiles of dietary score were 1.00 (reference), 0.91 (0.57-1.45), and 1.23 (0.76-1.99) (P for trend = 0.41). The odds ratios for severe depressive symptoms (CES-D score of ≥23) tended to decrease with increasing adherence score.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that diet based on the Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top was not prospectively associated with risk of depressive symptoms among Japanese.

Keywords: Depressive symptoms; Diet quality; Japanese; Japanese food guide spinning top; Prospective study.