Back There is doubt as to whether the Mediterranean diet helps prevent depression

There is doubt as to whether the Mediterranean diet helps prevent depression

This is the conclusion of an analysis by Nutrimedia, a project of the Science Communication Observatory and the Iberoamerican Cochrane Center directed by Gonzalo Casino, professor with the Department of Communication, whose main goal is to perform scientific assessments of messages concerning nutrition.

30.01.2019

 

There is much scientific evidence to suggest that the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest, in particular due to its high content of fruit and vegetables. Every year hundreds of studies are published that add new data on its various health benefits, from preventing heart disease and cancer to the reduction in the risk of diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

A recent investigation has shown that people who follow a traditional Mediterranean diet have 33% less risk of developing depression. This study is a systematic review of 41 studies on the impact of diet on depression, including a meta-analysis of data from tens of thousands of adults in France, Australia, Spain, the USA and the UK. The results of this study were widely disseminated by the media last September (La VanguardiaQuoCNNBBC, Tendències 21).

The exaggerations contained in some of these reports have led to an assessment of the available evidence by the research team at Nutrimedia, a project of the Science Communication Observatory (OCC) at the Department of Communication at Pompeu Fabra University and the Cochrane Iberoamerican Center, directed by Gonzalo Casino, professor with the Department of Communication at UPF. The analysis by Nutrimedia concludes that it is doubtful that the Mediterranean diet helps prevent depression. This is so because, although the results of the studies show that there is an association between the Mediterranean diet and a reduced risk of depression, the confidence that these data warrant is very low.

The assessment by Nutrimedia highlights that the degree of certainty of the results available is very low and therefore, it is not known whether or not the Mediterranean diet helps to prevent depression

“With the current studies, it is not possible to really know if people who follow a Mediterranean diet have a tendency to suffer less depression, or if the opposite happens, i.e., that depressed people tend to eat less healthily. In addition, those who follow a healthy diet also tend to have other healthy habits such as exercise, which could help prevent depression”, explains Gonzalo Casino, Nutrimedia project director. “The assessment by Nutrimedia highlights that the degree of certainty of the results available is very low and therefore, it is not known whether or not the Mediterranean diet helps to prevent depression”.

Similarly, today it is unknown whether other types of healthy diet help or not to reduce the risk of depression or symptoms of depression. This is due to the methodological limitations of the available studies, both insofar as their design and their execution. Furthermore, “the studies included in the best systematic review available were mainly conducted in high-income countries, and in some of them, among people with chronic health problems, hindering the extrapolation of the results to the population at large and to low- and middle-income countries”, highlights Darío López Gallegos, Nutrimedia consultant and physician of the Catalan Government’s Costa de Ponent Primary Care Directorate.

It is unlikely that these results are true and we will have to wait for higher quality studies to be performed

In conclusion, the degree of certainty of the results on the effects of the Mediterranean diet and other healthy diets on reducing the risk of developing depression or related symptoms is very low. This means that it is unlikely that these results are true and we will have to wait for higher quality studies to be performed in order to know with greater certainty whether or not the Mediterranean diet or another healthy diet can help prevent this health problem which, according to the WHO, affects 300 million people worldwide.

The main goal of the Nutrimedia project is to perform scientific assessments of messages concerning nutrition. It enjoys the support of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) and is the only source of information on food and nutrition in Spanish applying a scientific evaluation method to establish the degree of confidence or quality of the evidence behind each message.

Reference analysis:

Nutrimedia (2019),  “Es dudoso que la dieta mediterránea ayude a combatir la depresión”,

Technical report:

Contact with the project leader:

Gonzalo Casino: Twitter, Linkedin

Multimedia

Categories:

SDG - Sustainable Development Goals:

Els ODS a la UPF

Contact