Eating vegetables, fruits, whole grains may combat depression
Eating a diet of vegetables, fruit and whole grains may be a simple way to combat depression, a new study suggested.
Researchers in the US followed nearly 1,000 people of an average age of 81 for more than six years monitoring their diet and mood, according to telegraph.co.uk.
They found that people who avoided red meat, saturated fats and sugar, and stuck to healthy vegetables, fruit and whole grains, were 11 percent less likely to be suffering depression by the end of the study.
Study author Dr. Laurel Cherian, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and a member of the American Academy of Neurology, said, “Depression is common in older adults and more frequent in people with memory problems, vascular risk factors such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol, or people who have had a stroke.
“Making a lifestyle change such as changing your diet is often preferred over taking medications, so we wanted to see if diet could be an effective way to reduce the risk of depression.”
Around one in five people in Britain suffers from depression and prescriptions for antidepressants are at an all-time high.
The most recent data from the National Health Service Digital shows the health service issues around 64 million prescriptions each year at a cost of £9.2 billion.
A decade ago prescribing was less than half of the current rate.
During the study period, participants were monitored for symptoms of depression such as being bothered by things that usually didn’t affect them and feeling hopeless about the future
They also filled out questionnaires about how often they ate various foods, and the researchers looked at how closely the participants’ diets followed regimes such as DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), which recommends low-fat foods, or the traditional Western diet, which is high in fat and sugar.
People in the groups that followed DASH most closely were less likely to develop depression than people in the group that did not follow the diet closely.
In contrast, the more closely people followed a Western diet — a diet that is high in saturated fats and red meats and low in fruits and vegetables — the more likely they were to develop depression.
Cherian, said, “Future studies are now needed to confirm these results and to determine the best nutritional components of the DASH diet to prevent depression later in life and to best help people keep their brains healthy.”
The research was presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s Annual Meeting in Los Angeles.