Dietary fiber intake and depressive symptoms in Japanese employees: The Furukawa Nutrition and Health Study

Depressive symptoms in Japanese population

This 2016 cross-sectional study investigated dietary intakes of soluble, insoluble, total and sources of fiber and their relationship with depressive symptoms in a Japanese adult population (19-69 years of age). A total of 1977 employees signed up for the experiment, which involved the uses of diet history questionnaires to assess dietary intake, and the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale to report depressive symptoms. Fibre intake from fruits and vegetables was shown to significantly reduce depressive symptoms. The multi-variable adjusted odds ratio for the groups with lowest fruit and vegetable consumption attributes up to the highest were as follows: 1.00(reference), 0.80 (CI 0.6-1.05), and 0.65 (CI 0.45-0.95) respectively with p value for trend of 0.03. Although soluble, insoluble and total fibre in meals could not be associated with depression, this study demonstrates the preventative potential of greater fruit and vegetable intake in management of depressive symptoms. [NPID: soluble fiber, insoluble fiber, depression, dietary intake, fruit, vegetable]

Year: 2016

Reference: Miki, T., Eguchi, M., Kurotani, K., Kochi, T., Kuwahara, K., Ito, R., Kimura, Y., Tsuruoka, H., Akter, S., Kashino, I., Kabe, I., Kawakami, N., & Mizoue, T. (2016). Dietary fiber intake and depressive symptoms in Japanese employees: The Furukawa Nutrition and Health Study. Nutrition (Burbank, Los Angeles County, Calif.), 32(5), 584–589. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2015.11.014