Vegetarian diet is inversely associated with prevalence of depression in middle-older aged South Asians in the United States

ABSTRACT

Objective: To investigate associations between a vegetarian diet and depression among South Asians in the United States.

Design: Data from 892 South Asians (age range 40–83 y, 47% women) enrolled in the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) study were included. A vegetarian diet was defined as no intake of meat, poultry or fish in the previous year as reported on a validated food frequency questionnaire. Depressive symptomology was assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) and depression was classified as CES-D score ≥16. Multivariable logistic regression was used and covariates included age, sex, study site, education, smoking, body mass index, acculturation, intentional exercise, alcohol and energy intake, and antidepressant medication use.

Results: Our study demonstrated 43% lower odds of depression among vegetarians (p = 0.023).

Conclusions: Vegetarian diet was found to be inversely associated with the prevalence of depression. Longitudinal examinations confirming these findings are needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Vegetarian
• diet
• depression
• South Asians

Acknowledgements

We thank Luis A. Rodriguez from the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco for providing the Alternative Health Eating Index variables for the sensitivity analysis conducted in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The MASALA study was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant number R01-HL-093009]. Data collection at UCSF was also supported by NIH/NCRR UCSF-CTSI [grant numbers UL1 RR024131, UL1 TR000004].