Article Text
PDF
Abstract
Objectives Growing evidence suggests a link between diet and mental health. This study aimed to investigate the association between fruit and vegetable consumption and the prevalence and incidence of psychological distress in middle-aged and older Australians.
Design Cross-sectional and prospective.
Setting New South Wales, Australia.
Methods A sample of 60 404 adults aged ≥45 years completed baseline (2006–2008) and follow-up (2010) questionnaires. Psychological distress was assessed at baseline and follow-up using the validated Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), a 10-item questionnaire measuring general anxiety and depression. Psychological distress was defined as the presence of high-to-very high levels of distress (K10 score ≥22). Usual fruit and vegetable consumption was assessed using short validated questions. The association between baseline fruit and vegetable consumption and the prevalence or incidence of psychological distress was examined using logistic regression models.
Results At baseline, 5.6% reported psychological distress. After a mean 2.7 years of follow-up, 4.0% of those who did not report distress at baseline reported distress at follow-up. Baseline fruit and vegetable consumption considered separately or combined, was associated with a lower prevalence of psychological distress even after adjustment for sociodemographic characteristics and lifestyle risk factors. Baseline fruit and vegetable consumption, measured separately or combined, was associated with a lower incidence of psychological distress in minimally adjusted models. Most of these associations remained significant at medium levels of intake but were no longer significant at the highest intake levels in fully adjusted models.
Conclusions Increasing fruit and vegetable consumption may help reduce psychological distress in middle-aged and older adults. However, the association of fruit and vegetable consumption with the incidence of psychological distress requires further investigation, including the possibility of a threshold effect between medium and higher consumption levels.
- MENTAL HEALTH
- NUTRITION & DIETETICS
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Contributors BN, DD and SM participated in the design of the study. BN carried out the statistical analyses. BN, DD and SM helped draft the manuscript. All authors helped with the interpretation of the data and revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the manuscript.
Funding This research was funded from a Development Award from the Cardiovascular Research Network of NSW. BN was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award and a University of Sydney Merit Award. DD was funded by an Early Career Fellowship from the NHMRC of Australia (reference number 1072223).
Competing interests None declared.
Ethics approval The 45 and Up Study was granted ethical approval by the University of NSW Human Research Ethics Committee (reference HREC 05035/HREC 10186) and the SEEF Study by the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (reference 10-2009/12187).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement No additional data are available.
Linked Articles
- Miscellaneous