Higher vegetable intake and vegetable variety is associated with a better self-reported health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) in a cross-sectional survey of rural northern Ghanaian women in fertile age

Azupogo, Fusta; Seidu, Judith Amma; Issaka, Yakubu Balma

doi:10.1186/s12889-018-5845-3

Cited by 15 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The systematic review of the observational studies analyzing the association between the intake of fruit and vegetable and mental health in adults revealed the possible beneficial influence of the indicated products. This association was studied for various aspects of mental health, ranging from general and mental well-being [35,45,49,62,68,77,82,84,94], quality of life [36,39,42,43,47,55,70], sleep quality [55], life satisfaction [50,66,82], flourishing [50], mood [50,62,68,77,81], self-efficacy [56], curiosity [68], creativity [68], optimism [91,93], self-esteem [90], stress [40,48,67,71,73,80,89,92], nervousness [82], or happiness [52,59,65,82], to anxiety [35,…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Mental Health in Adults: A Systematic Review

et al. 2020

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The role of a properly balanced diet in the prevention and treatment of mental disorders has been suggested, while vegetables and fruits have a high content of nutrients that may be of importance in the case of depressive disorders. The aim of the study was to conduct a systematic review of the observational studies analyzing association between fruit and vegetable intake and mental health in adults. The search adhered to the guidelines of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), and the review was registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) database (CRD42019138148). A search for peer-reviewed observational studies published until June 2019 was performed in PubMed and Web of Science databases, followed by an additional manual search for publications conducted via analyzing the references of the found studies. With respect to the intake of fruit and/or vegetable, studies that assessed the intake of fruits and/or vegetables, or their processed products (e.g., juices), as a measure expressed in grams or as the number of portions were included. Those studies that assessed the general dietary patterns were not included in the present analysis. With respect to mental health, studies that assessed all the aspects of mental health in both healthy participants and subjects with physical health problems were included, but those conducted in groups of patients with intellectual disabilities, dementia, and eating disorders were excluded. To assess bias, the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale (NOS) was applied. A total of 5911 studies were independently extracted by 2 researchers and verified if they met the inclusion criteria using a 2-stage procedure (based on the title, based on the abstract). After reviewing the full text, a total of 61 studies were selected. A narrative synthesis of the findings from the included studies was performed, which was structured around the type of outcome. The studies included mainly focused on depression and depressive symptoms, but also other characteristics ranging from general and mental well-being, quality of life, sleep quality, life satisfaction, flourishing, mood, self-efficacy, curiosity, creativity, optimism, self-esteem, stress, nervousness, or happiness, to anxiety, minor psychiatric disorders, distress, or attempted suicide, were analyzed. The most prominent results indicated that high total intake of fruits and vegetables, and some of their specific subgroups including berries, citrus, and green leafy vegetables, may promote higher levels of optimism and self-efficacy, as well as reduce the level of psychological distress, ambiguity, and cancer fatalism, and protect against depressive symptoms. However, it must be indicated that the studies included were conducted using various methodologies and in different populations, so their results were not always sufficiently comparable, which is a limitation. Taken together, it can be concluded that fruits and/or vegetables, and some of their specific subgroups, as well as processed fruits and vegetables, seems to have a positive influence on mental health, as stated in the vast majority of the included studies. Therefore, the general recommendation to consume at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day may be beneficial also for mental health.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Mental Health in Adults: A Systematic Review

et al. 2020

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“…Three studies included child participants [18,33,34] and four studies included adolescent participants [35][36][37][38]. Thirty-seven studies included adult participants [14][15][16][17]19,[21][22][23][24][25][26]31,32,; seven studies included a combination of children or adolescents and adults [63][64][65][66][67][68][69].…”

Section: Study Design and Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The cross-sectional study design was the most common design among the included studies (Table 3), reported in 23 papers [15,18,[34][35][36][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]47,[51][52][53]58,[63][64][65]67,68]. These studies included analysis of existing, ongoing national surveillance datasets in the United States [15,18,44], cross-sectional studies in USA [47,51], and in international populations [34][35][36][38][39][40][41][42][43]45,52,63,65,67]. Cross-sectional analyses from prospective cohort studies were also included [40,43].…”

Section: Study Design and Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most commonly used measurement instruments among included studies were FFQs (n = 24) [14,16,17,19,24,35,37,40,43,[46][47][48][49]51,55,[57][58][59][61][62][63][64][65]68] and 24-h dietary recalls (n = 13) [18,22,23,32,34,38,39,44,52,53,60,66,68], in addition to brief FV questionnaire instruments (n = 4), food records (n = 3) or food diaries (n = 1), weighted food records (n = 1), interviews (n = 3), and variations of food item checklists. Some experimental studies used food weights to measure consumption (n = 3) or frequency counts (n = 1).…”

Section: Measurement Instrumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Twenty-five of the included studies used some variation of a Food Frequency Questionnaire [14,16,17,19,24,31,35,37,40,43,[46][47][48][49]51,55,[57][58][59][62][63][64][65]68], including quantitative [68], semiquantitative [43,58,61,62], self-administered, and interviewer administered [14,50,58]. A combination of different instruments and administration methods were used in a 10-country prospective cohort study, which varied by country [16,31,59].…”

Section: Food Frequency Questionnaires (Ffqs)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Scoping Review of the Operationalization of Fruit and Vegetable Variety

et al. 2020

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Adequate consumption of fruits and vegetables is critical for healthy growth and development. Less is known about fruit and vegetable variety, with variation in operationalization of variety. This review aims to identify currently available evidence operationalizing fruit and vegetable (FV) variety through a scoping review to summarize, compare, and critically evaluate the operationalization of variety. A secondary aim is to examine the implications of measuring FV variety and outcomes including dietary quality/nutrient intake. PubMed, Medline, PsycINFO were searched using the following criteria: (1) human study participants ages 2 years and above; (2) assessment of fruit variety consumption, vegetable variety consumption, or combined fruit and vegetable variety consumption; and (3) peer-reviewed publication available in the English language. Etiologic, intervention, and determinant studies were eligible to be included, and 47 studies met inclusion criteria. Differences in operationalization of variety were found. Findings included associations of FV variety with aspects of nutrient intake, dietary behaviors, lifestyle behaviors, and health outcomes. There were no studies that assessed conventionally grown produce vs. organic produce, and none of the included studies assessed cultivar. Nonstandard classification of fruit and vegetables, differences in fruit and vegetables grown in other countries, and the restriction to studies published in the English language may have excluded studies examining variety published in languages other than English. Operationalization of variety should be reported to allow one to explore comparability across studies, use national or international guidelines for greater comparability, associate variety with nutrient intake, and change variety behaviors via intervention.

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