INCHEON, Korea—Women with poor dietary habits appear to be at greater risk for depression and stress, according to a new study (J Biomed Sci. 2010;17(Suppl 1):S40. DOI: 10.1186/1423-0127-17-S1-S40). Researchers from Inha University investigated nutrient intake, dietary habits and stress in Korean female college students—65 with depression (using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression, CES-D, scale) and 65 controls matched for age, height and body mass index (BMI). A three-day recall method was used for dietary assessment.
The average intakes of vitamin A, beta-carotene, vitamin C, folic acid and fiber were significantly lower in depressed subjects compared to the control group. In addition, the average total dietary habit score of depressed females was significantly lower than the control females. The depressed subjects also had significantly lower scores compared to controls in the average dietary habit scores of “eating meals at regular times," “eating adequate amount of meals," “having meals with diverse foods," “avoiding eating spicy foods" and “eating protein foods such as meat, fish, eggs and beans more than two times per day." Finally, the depressed females had significantly higher life stress scores.
Researchers concluded more nutrition education and counseling about good dietary habits and nutrition is important among this cohort to help address depression and stress.