High intake of artificially sweetened drinks associated with higher depression risk
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Artificial sweeteners and artificially sweetened beverages were linked to a high risk for depression.
- Reducing consumption of ultraprocessed foods by at least three servings daily lowered that risk.
Increased intake of ultraprocessed foods, especially artificially sweetened beverages and artificial sweeteners, was linked to a high risk for depression, according to the results of research published in JAMA Network Open.
Recent research has indicated that diet may influence mental health — specifically, the risk for depression, Chatpol Samuthpongtorn, MD, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues wrote. Although ultraprocessed foods have been previously connected to health outcomes such as mortality, diabetes and CVD, there is not much evidence on associations between depression and ultraprocessed foods.
“Prior studies have been hampered by short-term dietary data and a limited ability to account for potential confounders,” the researchers wrote. “Additionally, no study has identified which ultraprocessed foods and/or ingredients may be associated with risk of depression or how the timing of ultraprocessed food consumption may be associated.”
The researchers conducted a prospective cohort study of 31,712 women aged 42 to 62 years who were enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study II between 2003 and 2017.
Every 4 years, the participants’ diet was evaluated using validated food frequency questionnaires. Researchers also gauged the degree to which the diet was processed using the NOVA classification system.
When it came to depression, the researchers used two definitions: “a strict definition requiring self-reported clinician-diagnosed depression and regular antidepressant use and a broad definition requiring clinical diagnosis and/or antidepressant use.”
Samuthpongtorn and colleagues found that those who had a high intake of ultraprocessed foods also had increased smoking rates, BMI, prevalence of comorbidities such as hypertension and diabetes, and were less likely to exercise regularly.
Those in the highest quintile of ultraprocessed food consumption had a high risk for depression — using both the strict definition (HR = 1.49; 95% CI, 1.26-1.76) and the broad definition (HR = 1.34; 95% CI, 1.2-1.5).
When it came to specific components of ultraprocessed foods, the researchers found that artificial sweeteners (HR = 1.26; 95% CI, 1.1-1.43) and artificially sweetened beverages (HR = 1.37; 95% CI, 1.19-1.57) were linked to high depression risk.
An exploratory analysis also revealed that those who reduced their consumption of ultraprocessed foods by at least three servings daily had a lower risk for depression using the strict definition (HR = 0.84; 95% CI, 0.71-0.99).
“These findings suggest that greater ultraprocessed food intake, particularly artificial sweeteners and artificially sweetened beverages, is associated with increased risk of depression,” Samuthpongtorn and colleagues concluded. “Although the mechanism associating ultraprocessed food 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.”
Perspective
Back to Top
In my view, the study associates processed foods, especially artificial sweeteners, with increased purinergic transmission in the brain. Purinergic receptors are involved in cellular neuroinflammation, chronic pain, and depression, according to multiple studies.
Sweeteners can lead to increased adenosine triphosphate activation, which is fine if your energy is spent on physical exertion. But when this process goes unchecked, it leads to metabolic disease, obesity and other chronic illnesses. Essentially, you’re adding more fuel to the fire, with no chimney for the smoke to escape, so it builds up and becomes toxic.
If exercise is your chimney, then you can continue to add fuel to the fire without many side effects. This is why Michael Phelps could eat just about whatever he wanted during the Olympics because his fire was constantly burning fuel due to his elite levels of calorie expenditure.
As we evolved, access to sugar was rare and provided much needed bursts of energy. Today, with the prevalence of artificial sweeteners, our physiology experiences constantly elevated inflammation and activation that goes unchecked by the equivalent amounts of physical output necessary to meet metabolic demands.
Our bodies did not evolve to digest these levels of hyper-nutrient-dense processed foods. Additionally artificial sweeteners are aptly named. Our bodies never encountered these molecules in the natural world; therefore, we process these chemicals ineffectively (if at all).
Ultimately, this unimpeded purinergic firing in the central nervous system leads to chronic disease, based on basic human physiological responses.
References:
Huang Z, et al. Signal Transduct Target Ther. 2021;doi: 10.1038/s41392-021-00553-z.
Zarrinmayeh H, et al. Mol Imaging. 2020;doi:10.1177/1536012120927609.
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts