Background: Epidemiological evidence on the relationships between different categories of vegetables and fruits and depressive symptoms is very limited and inconsistent, especially with no evidence from the general population. This study aimed to estimate their relationships among a large general population.
Methods: The cross-sectional design was based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007-2014) and included 16925 adults. Dietary information was attained from two nonconsecutive 24-h dietary recalls. Patient Health Questionnaire was applied for measuring depressive symptoms. The associations between vegetables and fruits intakes and depressive symptoms were appraised utilizing logistic regression and restricted cubic spline.Results: Compared with the lowest category, the most adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence intervals, CI) of depressive symptoms for the highest category of tomatoes and tomato mixtures were 0.81 (95% CI, 0.66-0.99), and 0.64 (95% CI, 0.48-0.85) for dark-green, 0.67 (95% CI, 0.53-0.84) for other vegetables, 0.48 (95% CI, 0.29-0.79) for berries, 0.67 (95% CI, 0.55-0.82) for total vegetables, and 0.70 (95% CI, 0.57-0.86) for total fruits, and for the medium categories of bananas and dried fruits were 0.62 (95% CI, 0.41-0.95) and 0.39 (95% CI, 0.19-0.81), respectively. After sensitivity analysis by further excluding subjects with co-morbid health conditions, these findings remained significant, except forbananas. An L-shaped relationship was observed between depressive A c c e p t e d V e r s i o n 3 symptoms and total vegetables, while the association was linear with total fruits.
Conclusions:Intakes of tomatoes and tomato mixtures, dark-green, other vegetables, berries, dried fruits, total vegetables, and total fruits were inversely related to depressive symptoms among adults.