Older adults who ate less of two types of food groups were found to experience notable changes in their depression risk and symptoms, according to a new study. Researchers at Deakin University and Monash University, in Australia, found that those over the age 70 who had a reduced consumption of ultraprocessed foods had a lower risk of experiencing depressive symptoms, while those who ate fewer inflammatory foods had less depressive symptoms. The experts said that overall, higher quality diet was associated with a lower risk of depressive symptoms in older adults, regardless of genetic predisposition to the mental health condition or low-grade inflammation.
The study was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry in July. "These findings add to mounting evidence that many ultra-processed foods aren’t great for our brains or our bodies, and it’s best to avoid them when we can," Susan Carnell, an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, told Newsweek. In the study, the researchers classed ultraprocessed foods based on the NOVA food classification system, which groups foods and drinks based on how much they have been processed.
Ultraprocessed foods include, but are not limited to, carbonated soft drinks, packaged snacks, chocolate, candies, ice cream, mass-produced packaged breads, pastries and buns, margarines and other spreads, breakfast cereals, certain meat and fish products and powdered or packaged ‘instant’ soups, noodles and desserts. These are foods which are designed to be profitable and to have a lower shelf life, which often means they contain ingredients not typically found at home, such as chemical-based preservatives and sweeteners. There has been increasing research indicating that ultraprocessed food could harm human health by potentially increasing risk of several health problems and even death, although more research still needs to be done to determine their impact.
This is also not the first study to find that higher consumption of ultraprocessed food could impact mental health. Carnell also noted that "not all ultraprocessed foods are equal," as, for example, "some whole-grain products and plant-based alternatives are classified as ultraprocessed foods, but these might not be as detrimental to health as other ultraprocessed foods like sugary drinks and confectionary." Inflammatory food is a group of foods that are believed to trigger or worsen chronic low-grade inflammation in the body when consumed regularly. Inflammatory food would include ultraprocessed food, but also other things like refined carbohydrates, fried food and others.
The researchers calculated how inflammatory the participants' diets were based on the Dietary Inflammation Score, which scores diets based on how frequently a person consumes certain foods, and negative dietary scores are considered anti-inflammatory, while positive scores are considered inflammatory. In a sample group of over 7,000 older adults, the researchers found that a higher consumption of ultraprocessed food, defined as at least four servings a day, was associated with a 12 percent higher rate of depressive symptoms. The experts followed the older adults for a median of 5.7 years.
Meanwhile, eating an anti-inflammatory diet was associated with a 7 percent lower risk of depressive symptoms compared to a pro-inflammatory diet. Lead study author Belayneh Miteku, a PhD candidate at Deakin University, told Newsweek that pro-inflammatory foods and ultraprocessed foods "may affect mental health through several interconnected pathways, including gut microbiota disruption, dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and chronic inflammation." "Low-quality diets, such as those high in refined carbohydrates, trans fats, and additives, increase levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines that can disrupt neurotransmitter systems, neurogenesis, and HPA axis regulation," he said. The results were found regardless of genetics, which Dr Uma Naidoo, director of Nutritional and Metabolic Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, told Newsweek was the "most clinically interesting" finding, and said it supports "dietary counseling even in patients with a strong family history." Although, it's important to note that the benefits in this study were "real but modest," Naidoo said.
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