Association between diet and symptoms of anxiety and depression in college students: A systematic review

Abstract

Objective: To gather research evidence on the association between diet and depression and anxiety among college students. Methods: Systematic searches were performed in CINAHL, PsycINFO, PubMed, and ScienceDirect databases to identify potentially relevant articles published between January 2000 and September 2020. Data were extracted from 21 selected studies. Results: Most of the cross-sectional studies found a positive association between diet and depression and anxiety; however, a few studies found inconsistent results. Moreover, several interventional studies demonstrated that a healthy diet (including consumption of fruit and vegetables) improved depression in the intervention group. Conclusions: The methodological limitations of cross-sectional studies to explain causality and the limited number of prospective interventional studies point to a pressing need to conduct more prospective, longitudinal, and randomized controlled trials to generalize the causal associations between diet and depression and anxiety. Further research is needed to investigate the biological mechanisms of nutrients’ actions on anxiety and depression.

Keywords:

• Anxiety
• college students
• depression
• diet
• nutrition

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States. No approval from an Institutional Review Board was needed for this systematic review.

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.

Authors’ contributions

SS, HO, LB-F, and AB conceptualized the review article. SS and HO developed the search strategies and conducted searching relevant articles. SS, HO, and LB-F synthesized results from the included articles. SS was responsible in drafting of this review paper and HO, LB-F, and AB were responsible to review the article. All authors reviewed and approved the final version.