PARIS, Sept 27 — We all know that junk food and ultra-processed products have an impact on our physical health (obesity, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, etc).
But what about our mental health? Recent American research links consumption of this type of food to an increased risk of depression in women.
Published in the journal JAMA Network Open, the research, conducted by a team from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, examined the dietary habits and mental health status of more than 31,000 women, aged between 42 and 62 (at the start of the study) and not suffering from depression at baseline, over the period of 2003 — 2017 .
The researchers concluded that women who consumed nine or more servings of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) a day had a 49 per cent greater risk of depression than those who ate less than four servings a day.
Ultra-processed foods include ready-made products such as pre-packaged soups, sauces, frozen pizzas, ready-to-eat meals, sweet and savoury snacks or sodas.
In addition, participants who reduced their consumption of ultra-processed foods by at least three servings a day had a lower risk of depression than those whose diets remained unchanged.
“There is also a link between ultra-processed food and disruption of the gut microbiome,” explained Dr Andrew T Chan, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the study to CNN.
“This is an important potential mechanism linking ultra-processed food to depression since there is emerging evidence that microbes in the gut have been linked with mood through their role in metabolising and producing proteins that have activity in the brain.”
The authors particularly point the finger at artificial sweeteners, consumption of which is thought to increase the risk of depression.
In 2014, a study already suggested that consumption of sweetened beverages, particularly diet drinks, was associated with an increased risk of depression in adults.
However, it remains difficult to establish a direct causal link between depression and junk food consumption.
“To the extent that sweet beverages and ultra-processed foods offer an acute, if fleeting, ‘comfort,’ it is also plausible that the early discomforts of burgeoning depression motivate a greater reliance on just such foods,” noted Dr David Katz, a specialist in preventive medicine and lifestyle who did not participate in the study.
“In this construct, depression causes increased intake of UPFs, rather than the other way around.” He also evoked the possibility that depression and a higher intake of ‘junk’ and ‘comfort’ foods “feed on each other,”
“The strength of our study is that we were able to assess diet several years before the onset of depression.
This minimises the likelihood that our findings are simply due to individuals with depression being more likely to choose ultra-processed foods,” Dr Andrew T Chan explained to The Guardian. — ETX Studio
