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

Fruit and vegetable consumption is associated with improvements in mental health, but few studies examined this relationship longitudinally. 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. 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 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. 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.