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Plant-based dietary quality and depressive symptoms in Australian vegans and vegetarians: A cross- sectional study
The focus of this 2021 study was on vegan and vegetarian diets, since it is not yet fully understood how plant-based diets are interlinked with mood disorders such as depression. These plant-based dietary patterns are often considered to be “healthy” and are said to provide broad health benefits. This present article assessed the quality of the plant-based diet and explored its association with depression. There was a total of 219 adult participants, all aged 18–44 years. Results showed a connection between overall plant-based diet quality and depressive symptoms in vegans and vegetarians. Among the individuals without depression, higher diet quality provided protection against depressive symptoms. However, Lee et al. could not identify a connection between diet quality and depression among those subjects with depression. Thus, a high-quality plant-based diet may be protective against depressive symptoms in vegans and vegetarians. Also, this finding supports the link between higher-quality dietary patterns with lower risk of depressive symptoms also reported by other research studies investigating food and mental health. Since more and more vegan and vegetarian food products are becoming available in Australia, it is important that we start to understand the mechanisms by which plant-based diets can influence depressive symptoms. [NPID: plant-based diets, vegetarian diet, vegan diet, depression, Australia, mental health, food, nutrition]
Year: 2021
