Eating five portions of fruits and vegetables can help maintain good mental health, a new study finds.
The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Warwick's Medical School. Previous studies have highlighted that consuming five portions of fruits and vegetables a day is crucial for maintaining good physical health. Now, the new study also found that it has mental health benefits.
The study was conducted on 14,000 participants in England, who were aged 16 years and above. About 56 percent of the participants were females. They all were part of the Health Survey for England , which saw detailed information collected on mental and physical health, health related behaviors, demographics and socio-economic characteristics.
Researchers used the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) to assess the mental well-being of the participants. In this scale, the top 15 percent of participants are categorized as having high mental wellbeing, the bottom 15 percent low and the middle 16-84 percent as middle mental wellbeing.
Researchers found that 33.5 percent of participants with high mental wellbeing ate five or more portions of vegetables and fruits a day compared to only 6.8 percent who ate only one portion of fruits and vegetables a day. Additionally, 31.4 percent of those with high mental wellbeing ate three-four portions and 28.4 percent ate one-two.
"Along with smoking, fruit and vegetable consumption was the health-related behavior most consistently associated with both low and high mental wellbeing. These novel findings suggest that fruit and vegetable intake may play a potential role as a driver, not just of physical, but also of mental wellbeing in the general population," Dr Saverio Stranges, the research paper's lead author, said in a press statement.
Previous studies have linked low mental wellbeing to mental illness and mental health problems. On the other hand, high mental wellbeing leads to people feeling good and functioning well.
"Mental illness is hugely costly to both the individual and society, and mental wellbeing underpins many physical diseases, unhealthy lifestyles and social inequalities in health. It has become very important that we begin to research the factors that enable people to maintain a sense of wellbeing," co-author Professor Sarah Stewart-Brown said. "Our findings add to the mounting evidence that fruit and vegetable intake could be one such factor and mean that people are likely to be able to enhance their mental wellbeing at the same time as preventing heart disease and cancer."
The current study was published online in the journal BMJ Open.
