British researchers conducted a study on the relationship between the type of diet, the extent of being a health system, and good mental health, especially for people over the age of fifty.
According to the study published by the “News Medical Life Science” website, quoting the British Journal of Health Psychology, the world’s population is increasing quickly, raising concerns about preserving health and quality of life in subsequent years, so the diet is an adjustable essential factor, as it affects physical and mental health.
Details of the study
The study dealt with the relationship between the diet and the positive mental health of the elderly in England, where this study used data from the 2018-2019 batch of the English long-term study of aging (ELSA), which included adults aged 50 years and more, and data was analyzed 3103 participants, assessing the amount of fruits and vegetables they eat, unsaturated fatty acids, and fish.
Several factors have been taken into account, including total energy consumption, age, sex, wealth, education, and social isolation, as well as a chronic disease or depression symptoms, and the average age of participants was 69.3 years old, and more than half of the participants were women, where the participants took two sessions of fruits and vegetables per day.
The main results
Fruits and vegetables have shown a preliminary connection with a feeling of happiness, but this association is very overlapping with a decrease in symptoms of depression, and the researchers note that fatty fish may support happiness, by helping the healthy brain paths of the chemical organized chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine.
The results indicate that different foods affect the luxury in different ways, as eating fruits and vegetables was closely linked to happy luxury, while eating fish predicted happiness, even after adjusting depressive symptoms, and eating unsaturated fatty acids showed weaker and less stable connections.
The results also confirm that the diet is an adjustable factor, and it has the ability to improve public health in the elderly. Increased fruit, vegetables and fish may be a simple and cost -effective strategy, although longitudinal and experimental studies are needed to confirm the causal relationship.
