Association Between Fruit/Vegetable Consumption and Mental-Health-Related Quality of Life, Major Depression, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder: A Longitudinal Study in Thailand

Abstract

Background: Fruit and vegetable consumption is associated with improvements in mental health, but few studies examined this relationship longitudinally. Objectives: The current study aimed at assessing the effect of fruit and vegetable consumption on mental-health-related quality of life, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorders. Methods: The study analyzed four waves of longitudinal trial data collected from 442 temple members with prehypertension and/or prediabetes, randomly selected from 12 Buddhist temples in Nakhon Pathom province from 2016 to 2018. The longitudinal associations between fruit and vegetable consumption and three mental-health-measures were calculated using generalized estimating equations (GEE). Results: Results of GEE predicting mental-health-related quality of life indicated that more frequent fruit consumption (P = 0.485) was not, but more frequent vegetable consumption (P = 0.027) was in the fully adjusted model associated with greater mental-health-related quality of life. Fruit and vegetable consumption (P = 0.033) was associated with greater mental-health-related quality of life only in the unadjusted model. More frequent fruit (P = 0.566 and P = 0.751, respectively), vegetable (P = 0.173 and P = 0.399), and fruit and vegetable consumption (P = 0.252 and P = 0.634, respectively) did not significantly reduce the risk of major depression and generalized anxiety disorder. Conclusions: The current longitudinal study did not find evidence that more frequent fruit and vegetable consumption was associated with mental-health-related quality of life, depression, and anxiety. However, more frequent vegetable consumption was associated with greater mental-health-related quality of life.