Time to trade your soda for a cold brew? There’s the old saying “you are what you eat,” but new research suggests your drink choice really could be affecting your mental health.
A study recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders found that regularly consuming drinks sweetened with sugar and artificial flavors was linked to an increased risk of developing conditions such as anxiety and depression in young and middle-aged adults. More positively, drinking coffee and fruit juice appeared to have the opposite effect, correlating with lower levels of depression and anxiety in people of all the ages studied.
This “underscores the potential relationship of prudent beverage choices in mitigating the risk of mental health,” the study’s authors stated.
Examining the Rise in Depression and Anxiety
Researchers from Wenzhou Medical University in China came to these conclusions after analyzing data collected from over 180,000 participants involved in the UK-Biobank project, a biomedical database containing detailed genetic and medical records of more than 500,000 volunteers. Participants were between 27 and 73 years old, with a mean age of 56.19 years and an almost even gender split (46.2 percent male).
Each of the 180,000 participants involved completed at least one dietary questionnaire and were free from depression and anxiety at the start of the study. When the follow-up took place approximately 11 years later, records revealed 5,884 (3.12 percent) had gone on to develop depression, and 6,445 (3.42 percent) had developed an anxiety disorder.
Read More: High-Sugar Diet Linked to Lung Cancer, Expanding Our Understanding of Diet’s Impact
The Not-So-Sweet Findings
Further analysis of the data revealed interesting links between the consumption of different beverages and the risk of developing a mental health condition.
Indeed, the researchers found that those who were under 60 years old and drank more than one serving of a sugar-sweetened beverage a day appeared to be 14 percent more likely to develop depression than those who did not.
Artificially-sweetened beverages were associated with an even higher incidence of depression, with those consuming one or more servings of these drinks appearing to have a 23 percent greater risk of developing the condition.
Interestingly, the same associations did not hold true for participants over 60 years old. In older adults, there appeared to be no obvious link between the consumption of drinks sweetened with sugar or artificial flavourings and poorer mental health outcomes.
The Sweet Swap
However, both younger and older adults did appear to benefit from regularly drinking pure fruit or vegetable juice and coffee. Adults under 60 years old who drank more than one serving of pure fruit or vegetable juice per day were 19 percent less likely to have developed depression by the time of the follow-up. Meanwhile, those who regularly drank coffee were 12 percent less likely to have developed depression.
What’s more, replacing one serving of a sugar-sweetened beverage with pure fruit juice or coffee was linked to a notable reduction in the risk of developing depression and anxiety in adults under 60.
Replacing one serving of milk with pure fruit juice or coffee was also associated with a lower risk of depression and anxiety in adults 60 years and older. This appears to demonstrate how simple dietary changes can significantly impact mental health.
The Gut-Brain Connection
These findings aren’t entirely new. The study contributes to an ever-increasing body of research exploring how diet can affect mental health, highlighting just how interconnected the gut and brain really are.
As per Harvard Health, “A troubled intestine can send signals to the brain, just as a troubled brain can send signals to the gut. Therefore, a person's stomach or intestinal distress can be the cause or the product of anxiety, stress, or depression.”
Current research suggests that the gut’s microbiome can affect our ability to handle stress and our vulnerability to depression, while it, in turn, is affected by the food we eat. Indeed, previous studies have already linked the consumption of sugary and artificially sweetened drinks to an increased risk of depression, whereas drinking two to three cups of (unsweetened) coffee a day has been associated with a lower risk of both depression and anxiety.
This article is not offering medical advice and should be used for informational purposes only.
Read More: Sugary Drinks Disrupt Human Organs as They Pass Through the Body
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
Journal of Affective Disorders. Ages-specific beverage consumption and its association with depression and anxiety disorders: A prospective cohort study in 188,355 participants
Harvard Health. The gut-brain connection
Pharmaceuticals. Gut Microbiota in Anxiety and Depression: Unveiling the Relationships and Management Options
Nature Reviews Microbiology. The interplay between diet and the gut microbiome: implications for health and disease
Psychiatry Research. The association between coffee consumption and risk of incident depression and anxiety: Exploring the benefits of moderate intake
Rosie is a freelance writer living in London. She has covered science and health topics for publications, including IFLScience, Newsweek, and Health.
