“The study reinforces the hypothesis that a healthy diet has potential not only in the warding off of depression, but also in its prevention<\/strong>,” says Ms Anu Ruusunen, MSc, who presented the results in her doctoral thesis in the field of nutritional epidemiology.<\/p>\n Depressed individuals often have a poor quality of diet and decreased intake of nutrients<\/strong>. However, it has been unclear whether the diet and the intake of foods and nutrients are associated with the risk of depression in healthy individuals.<\/p>\n A healthy diet characterized by vegetables, fruits, berries, whole-grains, poultry, fish, and low-fat cheese was associated with a lower prevalence of depressive symptoms and a lower risk of depression during the follow-up period.<\/p>\n Increased intake of folate<\/a> was also associated with a decreased risk of depression<\/strong>. Vegetables, fruits, berries, whole-grains, meat and liver are the most important dietary sources of folate. In addition, increased coffee<\/a> consumption was non-linearly associated with a decreased risk of depression.<\/p>\n In addition, participation in a three-year lifestyle intervention study improved depression scores with no specific group effect<\/strong>. Furthermore, a reduction in the body weight was associated with a greater reduction in depressive symptoms.<\/p>\n Adherence to an unhealthy diet characterized by a high consumption of sausages, processed meats, sugar<\/a>-containing desserts and snacks, sugary drinks, manufactured foods, French rolls and baked or processed potatoes<\/a> was associated with an increased prevalence of elevated depressive symptoms<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Contrary to some earlier observations, vitamin B12 intake, serum concentrations of n-3 PUFAs, serum ratio of n-6 to n-3 PUFAs, tea drinking and total caffeine intake were not related to the risk of depression in this study.<\/p>\n The study was based on the population-based Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor (KIHD) Study. The participants, over 2,000 middle-aged or older Finnish men were followed-up for an average of 13-20 years. Their diet was measured by food records and food frequency questionnaires, and information on cases of depression was obtained from the National Hospital Discharge Register. The effects of the three-year lifestyle intervention on depressive symptoms were investigated in the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study (DPS) with 140 middle-aged men and women randomized to intervention and control groups.<\/p>\n Depression is one of the leading health challenges in the world and its effects on public health<\/strong>, economics and quality of life are enormous. Not only treatment of depression, but also prevention of depression needs new approaches. Diet and other lifestyle factors may be one possibility.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The whole study is available online at the link.<\/p>\n http:\/\/mynhc.ca\/?81493<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Eastern Finland media release: A healthy diet may reduce the risk of severe depression, according to a prospective follow-up study of more than 2,000 men conducted… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[321,345,5,336],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15567"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15583,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15567\/revisions\/15583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Omega](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/fish_oil_omega-3.jpg\")
<\/a>A healthy diet may reduce the risk of severe depression<\/strong>, according to a prospective follow-up study of more than 2,000 men conducted at the University of Eastern Finland. In addition, weight loss in the context of a lifestyle intervention was associated with a reduction in depressive symptoms.<\/p>\nThose following a healthy diet are less at risk<\/h3>\n
Junk food, sugar and processed meats may increase depressive symptoms<\/h3>\n