4 ms·

Not mentioned is the possibility causality goes the other way : people who are feeling depressed react by eating more comfort food higher in added sugars.

• amyjess 11y ago
  Yep. When you're in a shitty mood, you want stuff that makes you feel good. Aside from the chemical content, there's also a strong psychological effect associated with eating foods you associate with certain things. Like, for example, I'm depressed, and in particular, I have some pretty serious issues with aging, which makes my depression worse. It's something I constantly dwell on, and it causes me no end of stress. What do I do when I want to feel like a kid again? Binge on candy, of course.
• nonbel 11y ago
  This is just one of those studies where they get tens of thousands of people and then find dozens of correlations with tiny p values between questionable measurements. Here is what they report correlated with glycemic index quintile membership using p < 0.0001: Burnam score (supposedly measures depression), BMI, physical activity, SFAs,MUFAS,PUFAS, trans fat, fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts/seeds, dietary fiber, healthy eating index score, Age, Race, education, income, hypertension, hormone replacement therapy, alcohol intake, smoking status, stressful life events, social support Here is their description of this scale: "The Burnam scale includes 2 items from the Diagnostic Interview Schedule and 6 items from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression Scale. Questionnaire responses were used to calculate the Burnam score with the use of a logistic regression–based algorithm; values for the scale ranged from 0 to 99, with higher scores indicating greater depressive symptomatology." Mean scores for lowest and highest glycemic index quintiles were .0209 +/-.09 and .0273 +/-.1, respectively. I have no feel for what these numbers mean, but ~.03 on a scale of 0-99 doesn't sound very depressed.
• TYPE_FASTER 11y ago
  Yes, exactly. This is what I thought when I read about this study.