Diet-Related Inflammation is Associated with Major Depressive Disorder in Bahraini Adults: Results of a Case-Control Study Using the Dietary Inflammatory Index

Wen Chen; Mo'ez Al-Islam E Faris; Nicola Luigi Bragazzi; Haifa M S AlGahtani; Zahra Saif; Ahmed Jahrami; Nitin Shivappa; James R Hebert; Haitham Jahrami

doi:10.2147/JIR.S306315

Diet-Related Inflammation is Associated with Major Depressive Disorder in Bahraini Adults: Results of a Case-Control Study Using the Dietary Inflammatory Index

J Inflamm Res. 2021 Apr 15:14:1437-1445. doi: 10.2147/JIR.S306315. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Wen Chen¹, Mo'ez Al-Islam E Faris², Nicola Luigi Bragazzi³, Haifa M S AlGahtani^{4

5}, Zahra Saif⁶, Ahmed Jahrami⁷, Nitin Shivappa^{8

9}, James R Hebert^{8

9}, Haitham Jahrami^{4

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Xiamen Xianyue Hospital, Xiamen, 361000, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics, College of Health Sciences/Research Institute for Medical and Health Sciences (RIMHS), University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
³ Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (LIAM), Department of Mathematics and Statistics, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁴ College of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Arabian Gulf University, Manama, Bahrain.
⁵ Renewal and Reward Center, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
⁶ Ministry of Health, Manama, Bahrain.
⁷ Bahraini Association for Intellectual Disabilities and Autism, Sanad, Bahrain.
⁸ Cancer Prevention and Control Program, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA.
⁹ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA.

Abstract

Purpose: This case-control study aimed to examine the association between the inflammation potential of the diet and depression.

Patients and methods: Ninety-six patients with major depression disorder were matched with 96 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Energy-adjusted DII (E-DII^TM) scores were calculated based on the participants' responses to a detailed nutritional assessment using a quantitative food frequency questionnaire. Descriptive results were reported. Logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals associated with E-DII scores and depression adjusting for covariates including age, sex, body mass index, comorbidities, level of education, and employment.

Results: The mean E-DII score of participants in the study was 1.32±1.08, indicating a generally pro-inflammatory diet. Patients with depression had elevated E-DII scores compared to age- and sex-matched controls with E-DII scores of 1.72± 1.09 vs 0.90±0.90, respectively (P=0.001). Results of logistic regression analysis revealed that patients with depression were nearly three times more likely to be in the extreme ends of pro-inflammatory diet (OR 2.75; 95% CI 1.82-4.15).

Conclusion: Adult Bahraini patients with depression have higher dietary inflammation potential compared to the general population controls. Further research is needed to confirm these results and provide effective interventions to reduce the burden of this dietary inflammation.

Keywords: Arabian population groups; case-control study; depression; inflammation; mental health.