A domestic study found that women who are about to menopause have a lower risk of developing depression as they consume more dietary fiber such as fruits and vegetables.
Jeong-ha Kim, professor of family medicine at Chung-Ang University Hospital and Dr. Yoon-seon Kim, recently published a study that analyzed the relationship between dietary fiber intake and depression in premenopausal women: a nationwide population- based study)’ was announced on the 24th.
Depression is one of the most common mental disorders in modern people, and the importance of prevention is being emphasized as social problems and costs caused by depression such as interpersonal problems and suicide are also increasing rapidly.
In particular, women have twice the incidence of depression than men, and are known to have a high risk of depression at certain times, such as postpartum depression and menopausal depression.
Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Survey, the research team measured the average dietary fiber intake of women with and without depression in order to analyze the correlation between dietary fiber intake according to menopause and depression in 5807 women.
As a result, average dietary fiber intake among all women was higher in the non-depressed group than in the depressed group (total female dietary fiber intake; 14.07±0.11 g/1,000 kcal (non-depressed group) vs 12.67±0.45 g/1,000 kcal (depressed group). ). ‘g/1000kcal’ is in grams (grams) of dietary fiber intake per 1000kcal of energy intake per day.
In pre-menopausal women, the dietary fiber intake of the non-depressed group was significantly higher than that of the depressed group (pre-menopausal women’s dietary fiber intake; 12.45±0.13 g/1,000 kcal (non-depressed group) vs. 10.30±0.46 g/1,000 kcal). (Depression group)).
In addition, the research team found that a 1g/1000kcal increase in dietary fiber intake per day in pre-menopausal women correlated with a 5% decrease in the prevalence of depression, whereas in postmenopausal women this difference did not appear.
The researchers found that these results indicate that there is a correlation between increased fiber intake and decreased depression in premenopausal women.
“The inverse association between dietary fiber intake and depression in premenopausal women identified in this study is the interaction between the gastrointestinal tract and the central nervous system, the’brain-gut axis’,” said Kim Yun-seon. There is a possibility that it may be related to female hormones, etc.,” he said. “We hope that it will become a preliminary study to clarify the causal relationship in the future and contribute to preventing depression through non-drug approaches such as dietary change.”
This research paper was published in the February 2021 issue of Menopause-The Journal for The North American Menopause Society, an SCI(E)-level international academic journal.