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Association between Healthful and Unhealthful Plant-Based Diets and the Risk of Dementia and Depression
34 Pages Posted: 22 Nov 2022
More...Abstract
Several previous studies have shown the importance of diet high in plant-based foods. However, few studies examined the association between plant-based diets and incidence of dementia or depression. This study aimed to prospectively investigate the association between overall plant-based diet and incidence of dementia or depression. We included 180,532 participants from the UK Biobank cohort study, free of a history of CVD, cancer, dementia and depression at baseline. We calculated an overall plant-based diet index (PDI), a healthful plant-based diet index (hPDI), and an unhealthful plant-based diet index (uPDI) based on 17 major food groups from Oxford WebQ. Dementia and depression were evaluated using hospital inpatient records in UK Biobank. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate the association between PDIs and incidence of dementia or depression. During the follow-up, 1,428 dementia cases, and 6,781 depression cases were documented. After adjusting for several potential confounders and comparing the highest with the lowest quintile of PDIs, the multivariable hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) for dementia were 1.01 (0.85, 1.21) for PDI, 0.82 (0.68, 0.98) for hPDI, and 1.29 (1.09, 1.53) for uPDI. The hazard ratios (95% CI) for depression were 1.03 (0.93, 1.12) for PDI, 0.92 (0.85, 0.99) for hPDI, and 1.15 (1.07, 1.24) for uPDI. A plant-based diet rich in healthier plant foods were associated with a lower risk of dementia and depression, whereas a plant-based diet that emphasizes less-healthy plant foods were associated with a higher risk of dementia and depression.
Funding Information: This study was supported by grants from the National Natural 34 Science Foundation of China (No. 81872611, 81673166).
Declaration of Interests: None.
Ethics Approval Statement: The UK Biobank protocol is available online (http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/UK-Biobank-Protocol.pdf). It was approved by UK Biobank's research ethics committee and Human Tissue Authority Research Tissue bank and got the participants' electronic signed consent. All participants agreed to use their anonymous data and samples to conduct health-related studies and reconnect for further sub-studies.
Keywords: plant-based diets, dementia, depression, cohort studies, adults
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