Can junk food make you depressed?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-09-21 01:00

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US researchers believe they have found a link between women eating ultraprocessed foods and an increased risk of depression, and this link was particularly strong for foods containing artificial sweeteners. The team looked into the eating habits and mental health of over 31,000 women aged between 42 and 62 years, and say that, although the mechanism that associates ultraprocessed foods to depression is unknown, their findings suggest artificial sweeteners and artificially sweetened beverages could be, as previous research has suggested, eliciting certain changes in the brain that are associated with the development of depression.

Media release

From: JAMA

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that greater ultraprocessed food (UPF; i.e., energy-dense, palatable, and ready-to-eat items) intake, particularly artificial sweeteners and artificially sweetened beverages, is associated with increased risk of depression. Although the mechanism associating UPF to depression is unknown, recent experimental data suggests that artificial sweeteners elicit purinergic transmission in the brain, which may be involved in the etiopathogenesis of depression.

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Research JAMA, Web page

Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, USA

Funder: The Nurses’ Health Study II was funded by grant U01 CA176726 from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health.

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