Eating badly can depress us

Researchers at the Universities of Navarra and Las Palmas (Canary Islands) have shown that ingestion of saturated fats increases the risk of suffering from depression and that olive oil, on the other hand, protect against this condition.

This was the conclusion on studying 12,059 volunteers within the SUN (Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra – University of Navarra Monitoring) project over six years. At the start, during and at the end of the project, the diet and lifestyle of the volunteers was analysed as well as the illnesses they had suffered. In this way, despite the fact that no volunteer had suffered from depression on initiating the project, at the end 657 news cases were detected.

Of all these, the participants with a high level of consumption of trans-fats, artificially present in industrial cakes and biscuits and in fast food, and naturally in certain full-fat milk products, "showed an increase in risk of depression of up to 48% compared to those participants who did not consume these," stated Ms Almudena Sánchez-Villegas, senior lecturer in Preventive Medicine at the University of Las Palmas, the main author of the research.

The study also indicated a dose-response relation, "in such a way that, the more trans-fats consumed, the greater the damaging effect caused to the volunteers," stated the expert.

The research team, led by Miguel Ángel Martínez-González, Professor of Preventive Medicine at the University of Navarra, also analysed the influence of polyunsaturated fats – abundant in fish and vegetable oils – and of olive oil in terms of their presence in the illness: "In fact, we discovered that there are kinds of healthier fats, together with olive oil, which are associated with a reduction in the risk of suffering depression," emphasised the Director of the SUN Project.

150 million people worldwide suffering depression

In this way the results of the research corroborate the thesis of greater rates of this illness in northern European countries with respect to southern ones, where a Mediterranean diet dominates. Nevertheless, the experts warn that, over recent years, the incidence of depression has increased, reaching the figure of 150 million persons affected worldwide, being the main cause of loss of years of life in those countries with a medium to high income per capita.

This is due, according to Almudena Sánchez Villegas, "to a radical change in the sources of fats consumed in Western diets, where we have substituted certain types of beneficial fats – polyunsaturated and monounsaturated ones from nuts, vegetable and olive oils and fish – with saturated and trans fats from meat, butter, industrial cakes and biscuits and fast food."

Apart from this research, published in the PLoS ONE medical journal, the study was undertaken amongst a population with a low ingestion of trans fats, these representing only 0.4% of the total energy ingested by the volunteers. "Despite this, we observed an increase of risk from suffering depression of almost 50%. From this, concludes Miguel A. Martínez-González, the importance of taking this into account especially in countries like the USA, where the percentage of energy from these foods is about 2.5%."

Finally, the analysis, led by the University of Navarra and the University of Las Palmas, suggests that both depression and heart disease are influenced in a similar way by diet and share a mechanism that is similar in origin. This has been backed up by numerous studies that point to the damaging effect of trans- and saturated fats as regards the risk of cardiovascular disease.

(Source: Basque Research: PLoS ONE)

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