Healthy food, heathy mind

This morning Deakin University released the results of a new study which found that people with healthy diets are less likely to have depression and anxiety – not only in Australia but around the world.

In the study, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, researchers from Deakin University and the University of Bergen analysed data collected from over 5700 middle-aged and older adults from western Norway.

“We found that the higher the dietary quality of these men and women, the less likely they were to be depressed,” said Dr Felice Jacka from Deakin University’s Barwon Psychiatric Research Unit, who led the study.

“Increased dietary quality was also associated with less anxiety in women, while those people eating more junk and processed foods were more likely to be anxious. Even after taking into account other demographic and lifestyle factors, these findings persisted.”

Dr Jacka said that similar associations have been shown in Australian women, but not before in Norwegians. “We are starting to see a very consistent pattern here,” she said.

“We have now assessed dietary quality in a number of different ways, in different countries, with different measures of mental health. In each of these studies, the results look very similar. This lends weight to the contention that diet plays a role in depression and anxiety.”