Work

Effects of dietary interventions on depressive symptom profiles: results from the MooDFOOD depression prevention study

Year: 2021

Type: article

Abstract: Background Dietary interventions did not prevent depression onset nor reduced depressive symptoms in a large multi-center randomized controlled depression prevention study (MooDFOOD) involving overweight adults with subsyndromal depressive symptoms. We conducted follow-up analyses to investigate whether dietary interventions differ in their effects on depressive symptom profiles (mood/cognition; somatic; atypical, energy-related). Methods Baseline, 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-up data from MooDFOOD were used (n= 933). Participants received (1) placebo supplements, (2) food-related behavioral activation (F-BA) therapy with placebo supplements, (3) multi-nutrient supplements (omega-3 fatty acids and a multi-vitamin), or (4) F-BA therapy with multi-nutrient supplements. Depressive symptom profiles were based on the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology. Results F-BA therapy was significantly associated with decreased severity of the somatic (B= −0.03,p= 0.014,d= −0.10) and energy-related (B= −0.08,p= 0.001,d= −0.13), but not with the mood/cognition symptom profile, whereas multi-nutrient supplementation was significantly associated with increased severity of the mood/cognition (B= 0.05,p= 0.022,d= 0.09) and the energy-related (B= 0.07,p= 0.002,d= 0.12) but not with the somatic symptom profile. Conclusions Differentiating depressive symptom profiles indicated that food-related behavioral interventions are most beneficial to alleviate somatic symptoms and symptoms of the atypical, energy-related profile linked to an immuno-metabolic form of depression, although effect sizes were small. Multi-nutrient supplements are not indicated to reduce depressive symptom profiles. These findings show that attention to clinical heterogeneity in depression is of importance when studying dietary interventions.

Source: Psychological Medicine

DOI: 10.1017/s0033291721000337