This study aimed to assess the association of dietary carotenoid intake with risk of depression among patients with cardiometabolic disease.Data were obtained from the 2005 to 2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Participants aged ≥ 20 years with any chronic cardiometabolic diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, heart failure, and stroke, were included in this cross-sectional study.We enrolled a total of 8655 cardiometabolic disease patients in the analysis. Compared to those in the lowest tertile, patients with cardiometabolic disease in the third tertiles of dietary α-carotene, β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, lycopene, and lutein + zeaxanthin intakes demonstrated ORs for depression risk of 0.73 (95% confidence intervals (CI): 0.62, 0.87), 0.68 (95% CI: 0.57, 0.81), 0.69 (95% CI: 0.57, 0.82), 0.77 (95% CI: 0.65, 0.91), and 0.69 (95% CI: 0.58, 0.82), respectively. The third tertiles of dietary total carotenoid intake were also associated with reduced risk of depression (odds ratios (OR): 0.72; 95% CI: 0.60, 0.85) compared to the lowest tertile. Furthermore, restricted cubic splines showed that dietary total carotenoid intake had a U-shaped association with risk of depression, indicating a positive relation when the dietary total carotenoid intake was higher than the turning point.Overall, our study suggests the significant inverse associations of dietary α-carotene, β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, lycopene, lutein + zeaxanthin, and total carotenoid intakes with risk of depression among patients with cardiometabolic diseases. In addition, we found a nonlinear U-shaped relationship between dietary total carotenoid intake and risk of depression among patients with cardiometabolic diseases.
Keywords: Cross-sectional study; NHANES; U-shaped relationship.