Dietary seaweed intake and depressive symptoms in Japanese adults: A prospective cohort study

The aim of this 2019 cohort study was to investigate the association between daily seaweed intake and depressive symptoms among 500 Japanese adults (ages 20-74). Seaweed consumption, which was measured using a self-administered diet history questionnaire, was used to divide the sample population into 3 groups according to changes in intake (decreased, unchanged, increased). Symptoms of depression were assessed using the Japanese version of the Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) and those scoring exactly 50 or higher were classified as showing depressive symptoms. The findings included 46 participants (9.2%) showing symptoms at the 3-year follow-up. Although multivariate analysis did not significantly associate consumption of seaweed with incidence of depression signs, the odds ratios for depressive symptoms were lower in the participants who had higher seaweed intake when compared to those who ate a lower amount of seaweed (decreased, 1.00; unchanged, 0.32 [0.13–0.81]; increased, 0.34 [0.13–0.88]; p for trend = 0.032) after adjusting for confounding factors. [NPID: seaweed, depression, Japan]

Year: 2019

Reference: Guo, F., Huang, C., Cui, Y., Momma, H., Niu, K., & Nagatomi, R. (2019). Dietary seaweed intake and depressive symptoms in Japanese adults: a prospective cohort study. Nutrition journal, 18(1), 58.